Bookkeeping

Back to work in Germany, no extra day, but at least in Bavarian & the other four mainly Catholic States, we do have a public holiday on Friday, Holy Three Kings.

Time to read the electricity meters and send them off, luckily online. This is for the calculation of the money we get from our PV electricity generation. 2022 was a record year since our system was installed in 2017. It has also been announced today that 2022 was the warmest since official records began in Germany in 1881. Warmth in fact is not good for PV, it prefers cold, but I think the main benefit we had in 2022 was the relatively snow free & sunny spring. In extra photos a chart.

Also did the 'farm' animal count for the annual 'Pest Disease' tax/insurance. Two horses @ €2.60 & 30 chickens @ €0.04 means bill of €6.40 for the year. In case of a disease breaking out e.g. Foot & Mouth or Bird Flu, we would be compensated for the loss, plus the carcasses would be disposed of free. In addition, animals dying naturally will also be collected & disposed of at a token cost of around €20 for a horse. As horse owners in the UK will know, this can be very expensive, probably £300++. Again, the inventory could be done online & worked easily.

Finally the water meter reading for the parish council who are responsible for providing drinking water & sewage. This has been possible online for a couple of years, but has never worked for us. Our house number simply doesn't appear on the parish council database. This year they have added more QR codes for mobiles & password PC driven systems - both failed - so it was back to email. At a recent visit to town hall, I had mentioned the past problem, but was told it couldn't be the case. Later today, got a reply that indeed we hadn't been in the database as they hadn't put our water meter serial number in the database two or three years ago when new meters were installed in all properties.

So that was my first day back at work. Now feet up until the electricity meter reading when the current contract runs out. Already been informed the price per kWh will increase from €0.2598 to €0.3847, a rise of 49%! Naturally, the money we get for each kWh we put in the grid from our PV will not increase a cent - it is €0.12, legally set by the Govt for 20 years in 2017. Every year it gets less for new PV units and is currently around €0.08. No wonder, private households are being encouraged to install PV and subsidise the energy companies!