Electricity prices per MWh 'lowest in EU' this week

ELECTRICITY in Spain became the cheapest in the European Union on Thursday and has remained so ever since – the second time this has happened in a fortnight.

Retail prices per megawatt per hour (MWh) dropped to €22.91 a week ago, then doubled on Wednesday, only to fall to €27.73 again the following day – a reduction of 37%.

This meant the price of energy in Spain fell far below those of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which typically register the lowest in the EU and the EEA at around €41 per MWh, and even below Germany, which beat the Scandinavian countries at €38.

Meanwhile, France recorded retail power prices of €44.90 and Belgium €48, and in Italy and the UK it more than doubled Spain at €52 and €58 respectively.

This plummeting in costs is partly due to a greater production in wind energy providing electricity to the national grid – with storms having re-entered Galicia from the Atlantic this week and now sweeping Spain as a whole, wind farms have seen energy generated soar by 62.7% this month compared with March last year, to 6,937 gigawatts per hour (GWh), or 32.9% of the total, way ahead of nuclear sources, which made up just 19.2% of the total power created.

Torrential rain across the mainland and Balearic Islands as a result of the string of storms since the start of the year mean hydraulic energy production has shot up, whilst combined sources only make up 5.9% of total power generated and coal just 5.4%.

Since the start of the year, electricity production has been made up of 26.5% wind – making this the main source for 2018 so far – 21.5% nuclear, 13.5% hydraulic, 12.2% coal and 8.5% combined sources, with generators providing 11%.

But low energy prices do not necessarily mean reduced bills – in Spain, only 35% of monthly or bi-monthly invoices for electricity are for actual consumption; the rest is charges and taxes.

Standing charges make up 40% and the remaining 25% is Electricity Tax and IVA.

The national government has frozen taxes and standing charges again for 2018, and mainstream State-run electricity boards, such as Iberdrola, charge by the hour, with their daily energy prices fixed a day in advance at around noon.

Overall, limiting consumption of electricity does little to save the householder money, although it does have long-term environmental benefits.