Linz AG slashes prices as average household must fork out more

An Upper Austrian electricity provider has lowered its rates while the average Austrian household energy costs have jumped.Linz AG announced today (Mon) it lowered its consumer prices by 1.4 per cent as of 1 January. The company said this decision means its customers will save an overall one million Euros this year.The firm, which claims to have one of the lowest annual outage times in Europe at an average 32 minutes per year, also said it will invest 18.5 million Euros into its network in 2011.Linz AG said last month that it was hoping for a turnover of “around 600 million Euros” in the current 2010/2011 business year.Customer pressure groups are meanwhile expected to turn their guns on energy providers as it has emerged that Austrians were forced to spend 5.8 per cent more on gas, electricity and other services and products in November 2010 compared to the same month of the previous year.An immense heating oil price hike has been identified as being behind the development, while the prices of gas and electricity did not vary so dramatically.