BMK: Electricity price cost compensation under review

Jul 1, 2022 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

Recently, the federal government announced a comprehensive anti-inflation package. Part of this is to compensate for the increased electricity costs for particularly energy-intensive companies. The Ministry of Climate Protection (Klimaschutzministerium, BMK) has already submitted a draft bill for the Electricity Price Cost Compensation Act 2022 (Strompreiskosten-Ausgleichsgesetz, SAG 2022).

The indirect CO₂ costs of companies, i.e. the costs actually incurred by passing on the costs of greenhouse gas emissions via electricity prices, will be subsidised. The subsidy amounts to 75% of the indirect CO₂ costs actually incurred. Calculation formulas for the subsidy of the individual company are available in Annex 2 (Section 3 SAG 2022).

Eligible for funding are, in principle, companies

• which have to bear indirect CO₂ costs and are exposed to an actual risk of shifting CO₂ emission costs, and
• which in 2022 manufacture products in one or more plants that fall under a sector or subsector according to Annex 1 of the Act.

Applications are possible for the share of annual electricity consumption exceeding 1 GWh.

Companies applying for funding are obliged to implement an energy audit and the recommendations of the audit within a reasonable period of time, provided that the payback period for the relevant investments does not exceed three years and the costs of the investments are proportionate (Sec 6 para 1 SAG 2022).

The exact funding guidelines are still to be provided by the BMK.

The subsidies are processed by Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH.

213/ME XXVII. GP