A recent study commissioned by the energy company Octopus Energy and conducted by RWTH Aachen reveals that loyal electricity customers in Germany are being systematically disadvantaged. Energy suppliers attract households with attractive introductory tariffs and then raise the price in the second year of the contract by an average of 47 %-approximately 13 cents per kilowatt‑hour. The result is that, according to the study, German consumers paid about 11 billion euros too much in 2025 alone. Octopus Energy refers to this practice as a “loyalty penalty”.
The research quantified the price gap between offers to new customers and the rates applied to existing customers for the first time. It was based on thousands of price adjustment notices sent to private electricity customers. The analysis shows that up to 30 million households-roughly three‑quarters of all German households-were affected in 2025, meaning they paid more than their fair share for electricity.
Octopus Energy accuses other energy suppliers of running a systematic policy of “luring and gouging”. The company notes that new‑customer prices closely track overall market developments, whereas prices for existing customers rise almost independently. The justification for these increases is often given in broad terms as “procurement and distribution” costs.
Since the energy crisis the gap between new‑customer and existing‑customer tariffs has not narrowed but widened. The study found that the average savings a household could achieve by switching providers between 2018 and 2021 ranged from 121 to 241 euros. Today, the potential cost advantage of a new‑customer contract can amount to as much as 492 euros per year.
