By the concept of current concession levy regulation, the more energy a community uses, the higher the revenues for the municipality. The current mechanism for calculating the concession levy therefore is not in line with the goals of the Energiewende. That is because linking the usage to the calculation method has the following paradoxical effect: The more power a community saves through efficiency measures and the more power companies and citizens produce that circumvents the public power distribution network (for example through combined heat and power production or renewable energy installations), the smaller the revenues for the municipality. In addition, the levy for off-peak tariffs is lower, so that the use of smart metres and – with those – load-variable tariffs also reduce concession levy intake.
The goal of this project was to find an approach for solving this problem and to make a recommendation for legally reforming the concession levy, which would both maintain previous revenue levels and support the Energiewende locally. In the future, communities should not be penalized for efficiency and energy savings measures through lower concession levy revenues.