Rostock: Tenants have to pay 80 percent more for district heating!

Rostock: Tenants have to pay 80 percent more for district heating!

Rostock, Deutschland - The tenants in Rostock are faced with a drastic increase in their district heating costs. From next year you will have to expect an increase of around 80 percent. For a 70 square meter apartment of the Wiro, this means additional costs of around 360 euros per year. The Stadtwerke Rostock justify this increase with greatly increased purchase prices for energy, which were influenced, among other things, by the Ukraine War. So far, existing contracts of the housing cooperatives had prevented a faster price increase, such as NDR .

massive price increases in comparison

The Association of North German housing companies (VNW) emphasize that in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the tenants must have the main burden of cost increases in the course of district heating expansion. According to VNW, data from six of the nine housing companies in Rostock show planned price increases of 56 to 86 percent compared to 2022. For a sample apartment, this means additional costs of up to 434 euros next year. VNW director Andreas Breitner criticized that tenants and landlords are increasingly dependent on the price adjustments of the energy companies, which is problematic in view of an existing connecting force, such as Nordkurier reports .

The climate goals force to switch to climate -neutral heat production. While district heating is the key to the energy transition, many residents face the question of the costs of this heat is generated. More than 80 percent of Rostock district heating is currently based on fossil fuels, which results in both high CO2 taxes for tenants and for housing companies. The VNW points out that there is a lack of planning and engineering capacity to accelerate the expansion of district heating in the sense of decarbonization.