MADRID – On Friday, the price for electricity in the wholesale market fell for the first time after breaking record after record in Spain. With a decrease of 11.6%, producers, energy companies and large consumers now pay €166.29 per Megawatt hour (MWh).
Yesterday that was still €188.18 per MWh. However, the price drop will not make a big impact. Even taking the reduction into account, electricity is still more than three times more expensive than a year ago. The price of gas and electricity is currently high throughout Europe. This is because the price for CO2 emission rights has increased internationally in the context of the European Climate Agreement.
In the UK, for example, €204/MWh is paid, in Germany €157, in France €158 and in Italy €167. Portugal pays the same price as Spain because both countries buy their energy from the same wholesale market. However, because European countries calculate their regulated tariff in different ways, the final consumer price within Europe is also not the same.
Renewable energy companies surrender ‘bonus’
The Spanish government announced a number of measures in the week that will not increase the electricity bill for consumers and other small consumers proportionally with the price on the wholesale market. For example, nuclear power plants and sustainable energy producers must surrender the ‘bonus’ received from the government to offset the CO2 emission rights.
Protest against measure
However, these energy producers that do not emit CO2 have appealed against this. Because they consider the measure, which will remain in force until March 2022, unjust state interference. The Spanish government is counting on the rollback of the bonus up to that date at a total amount of €2.6billion, which is intended to compensate for the high energy bill.
The AEMEC (Spanish Association for Minority Shareholders of Listed Companies) will also challenge the measure. And will do so in both the Spanish and European courts. They believe the measure is clearly harmful to hundreds of thousands of minority shareholders.
