Evening edition · Wednesday, 4 November 2026
Ordinary Ledger: €2.32 more a year for the wires, if a subsidy passes by 7 December
Almost every grid operator in Germany has now posted its provisional fees for 2027. For a typical household the bill for the wires barely moves, and the reason it barely moves still needs a vote.
Your electricity bill has a part nobody advertises: the fee for the wires. It is set not by your supplier but by the local grid operator, and this autumn those operators have been publishing their provisional numbers for 2027. The data firm ene’t, which collects them, said on Wednesday that it now has fees from 751 electricity grid operators covering 99.97% of the country1. That makes it the first nearly complete picture of what the wires will cost you next year.
The ledger. - Household using 4,000 kWh a year: grid costs €357.24 in 2026, €359.56 provisional for 2027, up 0.65%1. - Household using 1,500 kWh: €191.96 to €193.85, up 0.99%1. - Gas household using 7,000 kWh: €238.63 to €244.08, up 2.28%1. - Gas household using 20,000 kWh: €542.21 to €555.66, up 2.48%1. - Desk arithmetic: that is €2.32 more a year for the larger electricity household, €1.89 for the smaller one, and €5.45 and €13.45 for the two gas households. These are national averages; your own operator may sit well above or below them.
The line that holds it up. At the top of the system, the four transmission operators say their average fee will rise from 2.86 to 3.54 cents per kWh in 20272. That figure already assumes a federal subsidy of €5.525 billion from the climate and transformation fund, which the cabinet approved in early September and which is about €1 billion smaller than this year’s2. Without it, they say, the fee would rise to 6.52 cents2. The law is not yet passed. If there is no legal certainty by 7 December, the operators expect the final transmission fees to go up accordingly2.
What it means for you. Nothing changes on your bill this week, and the grid is only one line on it. Two dull things are worth doing. First, keep the letter your supplier sends before January and look for the “Netzentgelt” line rather than the headline price. Second, compare that line with this year’s: a switch decided on the actual numbers beats one decided on a headline.
The constructive point is that a nearly flat grid bill is not luck. It is a subsidy, a regulator and a few hundred operators filing tables on time. Nothing here is investment advice.
What to watch
- 7 December 2026: if the law for the €5.525 billion transmission subsidy is not legally secure by then, the operators expect the final 2027 transmission fees to rise accordingly2.
- Your supplier's price letter for January, which is where any change in grid fees actually reaches you.
The cheapest kilowatt-hour is the one whose wires someone else already agreed to pay for.
Sources
- Erfassungsstand Netzentgelte — ene't GmbH, Stand 04 Nov 2026.
- Übertragungsnetzbetreiber veröffentlichen vorläufige Netzentgelte für 2027 — Amprion GmbH (for 50Hertz, Amprion, TenneT Germany, TransnetBW), 01 Oct 2026.
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