Heating cost forecast 2024: (Regionally) high additional pay-ments despite falling energy prices and mild temperatures

Eschborn, January 20, 2025:  In 2024, the district heating price has risen by a significant 27.1% compared to 2023. This development will lead to a noticeable burden for consumers, as space heating costs for district heating will also be 25.4% higher and underlines the need to find cost-efficient and sustainable solutions for heat supply. This is the result of an analysis of price and consumption trends by energy service provider Techem. Overall, however, additional payments for consumers in 2024 are expected to be lower than in 2023. The trend reversal is due to the price trend for electricity and gas, falling oil prices and the very mild temperatures in some cases. Following the sometimes drastic increases in 2022 and 2023, the price of electricity in 2024 fell by 6.4 % compared to the previous year, while the prices of gas and oil fell by 3.6 % and 4.6 % respectively. Accordingly, the space heating costs ^[1] for the respective energy sources fell by 7.6 % (electricity), 4.8 % (gas) and 5.8 % (oil).

Mainz, Worms and Braunschweig particularly economical - Andernach brings up the rear

Despite the overall better price situation and the mild temperatures - 2024 was 1.3% warmer in the heating period compared to 2023 - there are still significant regional differences in con-sumption and heating costs. For example, Mainz (-26.1%), Worms (-23%) and Braunschweig (-20.5%) saw a significant decrease in energy consumption. In contrast, the southwest of Germany performed particularly poorly in this year's national energy-saving ranking. Four of the cities and municipalities with the largest increases in consumption in 2024 are located in Baden-Württemberg, including Lahr (+24.1 %), Freiburg im Breisgau (+21.6 %), Pfullendorf (+18.1 %) and Laupheim (17.3 %). The city of Andernach in Rhineland-Palatinate brought up the rear. Here, the increase in heating consumption amounted to 39.9 % and the increases in heating costs per energy source were also the highest: electricity (+ 30.9 %), gas (+ 34.9 %), oil (+ 33.5 %), district heating (+ 77.8 %).

“In view of the strong fluctuations in energy prices, the topic of energy efficiency is becoming more and more important. Our heating cost forecast also suggests that people's behavior with regard to the use of heating energy is changing for the better," says Matthias Hartmann, CEO of Techem. "Technological innovations are the key to sustainably reducing energy consumption and costs. At Techem, we focus on smart, low-investment solutions based on our digital platform for all types of consumption. With our digital boiler room, which is based on monitoring and optimized operational management of heating systems, an average of 15 % energy can be saved and emissions significantly reduced. At the same time, our smart metering systems create complete consumption transparency and make it possible to flexibly adapt consumption to fluctuating electricity generation from renewable energies."

[1]Consumption costs for space heating do not include costs for domestic hot water heating

Image information: Despite low consumption, high additional payments are to be expected. (Copyright: Techem)

About the methodology

This consumption forecast is based on temperature data from the German Weather Service for the years 2023 to 2024 and data from the Federal Statistical Office on prices for various energy sources in the period in question. The forecast is based on an evaluation of price and consump-tion trends from the Techem Research Institute on Sustainability (TRIOS) for the past year. Whether additional costs will arise for consumers and how high these will be can be determined once the bill has been drawn up.