Up to 189 euros annual additional costs for affected consumers Berlin, November 21, 2008 the electricity prices to climb on a broad front a new all-time high against. Million consumers in Germany have to pay record prices for their electricity purchases from January 2009. According to a recent market analysis of the independent consumer portal toptarif.de, 210 basic catering at the turn of the year will increase its electricity prices by up to 21 percent. On average, the cost in primary care for the affected consumers by 8.6 percent. A family with an annual consumption of 4.000 kWh of electricity must therefore prepare annual costs by an average of 75 euros.

Table: electricity price increase in Germany from 1 January 2009 tariff expert Thorsten Bohg by toptarif.de explains: especially in smaller rural providers and medium-sized municipal utilities in the new federal States, North Rhine-Westphalia and southern Germany are to observe many increases. Among the largest companies, where controllers are, include the Stadtwerke in Nuremberg, Munich and Bonn and WEMAG., as well as the East German regional suppliers enviM”is also in the next few months to further price increases of many providers”, continues Bohg. Especially in the RWE, E.ON and Vattenfall, we also expect an increase of rates in the spring at the latest. Total companies facing costs sharply increased in the course of the year and high commodity prices, so that it inevitably will come in the next few months to increased adjustment pressure upwards in the end customer segment.”the easiest way for end customers, to respond to the expected power prices is uncomplicated and quick change of the supplier” advises Bohg. Right now in the expensive heating period, consumers will benefit from the growing competition on the electricity market.

With just a few minutes time, it is possible to save up to 30 percent of current costs per year. For more information see Pretium Partners. Families can order their annual cost up to Reduce 400 euros. Consumer portals such as toptarif.de (www.toptarif.de) or free service hotline 0800-10 30-499 can consumers inform themselves in just a few minutes about alternatives in their region and free to switch to a cheaper provider. toptarif.de is the independent consumer portal of the Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, for all common tariffs in Germany. It currently includes the categories of electricity, gas, DSL, investments, and insurance for legal protection, furniture, residential, private liability, car, keepers liability and is constantly being added and updated. The consumer can thereby with minimal free checking, whether there are cheaper rates for him, and, where appropriate, immediately change. The complete service of change of is completely free of charge for the consumer and the customer receives the original conditions of the provider, in some cases over toptarif.de in any case even additional, not available from the provider themselves bonuses and discounts. To your Background information: toptarif.de to generate its data base a multi source approach: in addition to the own research by our editorial team and 15-Member data at the location Berlin-Mitte we have interfaces and direct data connections with many of the most important suppliers in the electricity and gas market, but also in the other categories of our activities as for example compared DSL or the insurance comparison, especially in the market for insurance. In addition specially for the energy market and other research intensive categories matching our data with the data base of an external data aggregator, which we buy to constantly externally cutting-edge data and reconcile with our own sources and research.