BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The processing of the December emergency aid for gas and district heating customers has been largely problem-free from the point of view of municipal utilities and municipal energy suppliers. It succeeded to the energy suppliers despite high expenditure and time pressure to pass on the relief punctually to consumers, said a speaker of the federation of local enterprises (VKU) on Friday according to report. He referred to a random query among the more than 1500 member companies.

Gas and district heating customers did not have to pay a discount in December. The costs are borne by the federal government. The measure was primarily intended to relieve the burden on private households and small and medium-sized enterprises. Around 20 million households benefited from the assistance. For tenants, the relief mostly arrives with the next utility bill.

The projected annual consumption and the amount of the relief assistance had led to many customer inquiries at the energy suppliers, the VKU said. "Isolated problems could not be completely ruled out in millions of payment transactions," the statement said. Among other things, some customers had mistakenly transferred their budget billing payment in full by bank transfer. One energy supplier reported to the VKU that due to a system error, the budget billing payment for natural gas had not been completely suppressed, but had been postponed to January. "The amounts received or collected in error were refunded to consumers, or will be credited to the customer's account," VKU said.

It added that consumers' need for information remains "extremely high." "The focus of the questions is now the launches of the gas and heat price brake and electricity price brake. This effort represents a very considerable burden for the companies."/nif/DP/ngu