Electricity in Spain, does anyone understand it?

The Spanish electrical power set-up seems to be a really obscure game of sudoku! It makes no sense at all and  appears to be deliberately complicated so it is virtually impossible for the average man on the street to truly understand it.  They talk about the quarterly "electrical auctions"  and  "the tariff deficit" and "tolls" to access the market but no one really explains clearly why it has become more expensive to generate electricity in Spain. Since electricity was privatised it hasn’t done anything but go up and up. Just in the last two years it has gone up 21% and is set to rise another 3% plus taxes. Spain has the most expensive electrical bill in all of Europe and is boasting at being the one of the world leaders in renewable energy but still has to buy electricity from France, Portugal and Morocco and has just increased this year the use of coal to generate electricity. Although Spain uses less coal than other countries it still generated last year 15.5% of it’s electricity with it when France is capable of only 4%. However compared to the UK’s 30% and Germany’s 45% (which is shocking) it doesn’t seem too bad. Nonetheless I am still baffled as to why Spain is so incapable of generating electricity at a competetive price,

Can anyone shed some light on this madness? Is it just another complicated mechanism to benefit just a few private companies? Should energy be private being such a necessary asset for the country’s economy?

 

This message was last edited by mac75 on 28/12/2012.

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Different things.

France can generate electricity very cheaply because of the high percentage of nuclear in their mix, which also permits them to export electricity to numerous other countries. This is even more so in view of many of their plants now having reached the age that capital costs have been written off so all surplus is profit.

In many countries coal has a political component. Coal mines are often subsidized by governments to protect jobs. This is especially prevalent in Germany. The net result is that coal is cheaper to buy than its natural market value which is why coal is still an attractive way of producing electricity, especially at the present time where the alternative, oil, is rising in price and we have scenarios such as peak oil looming.

Renewables have the downside that they are not available all the time. Thus a high reliance on renewables is automatically also a high reliance on backup generation. In some cases this is pumped hydro, but where pumped hydro is not available, you are talking expensive purpose built plants such as gas which need to be staffed and maintained whether they are running or not. So for every windmill there is a backup cost somewhere else in such a plant. This is why renewable energy always ends up costing more in reality than you would think looking at the direct installation costs.

It could wel be that Spain doesn't have that backup capacity to backup its wind plants and so is buying French nuclear power to fill the gaps, even if it is able to export its own excess when the wind plants are running at capacity. This would make it expensive as power is very cheap if you order it in advance and predictably, but if you buy it ad hoc to fill in your own gaps you pay a much higher price.

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 Thanks for the reply, your observations are very valid but  I feel the main problem here is that there aren't any efforts to improve the situation such as investing in more nuclear plants for the long term. Spain shouldn't have to depend on importing electrical energy it should be self sufficient, surely an ad hoc plan is not a plan for the future. However it does guarantee major transactions every three months which benefit the private sector greatly and I am sure politicians too. It is all very clear why Spain needs to buy foreign energy, because it can't produce enough, but there is never an explanation as to why national or imported energy always goes up in Spain, when the rest of Europe manages to maintain their effciency and costs. Something doesn't make sense here. It makes me think that public utilities like electrcity and water should be public and not private, the whole idea of making energy private was to increase effciiency and create competition with the goal of getting the lowest price to the consumer. Well this certainly isn't happening, it appears to be working as a private monopoly now where they can put the price up as they wish and the country just has to swallow it. What is Spain doing so badly? It is a similar story with internet, why does Spain have the most expensive internet in all of Europe? can anyone explain clearly how the Tariff deficit works, as it appears Spain is accumalting massive debts here with its energy model.

 

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And to top it all the latest in the paper this week 3% rise in January and anybody going over 10% of their average consumption (what is everybodys average) there will be a charge of between 1 % & 8 % work that one out- 

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 I know this is now the grumpy old eye on Spain site where people take delight in trawling the internet to show any story to put Spain in a bad light but why pick on Spain for this?  You are, I assume, aware that Britain also has a very ineffectual method of electricity production and storage?   Nuclear stations being closed as anything with nuclear in the name offends the green lobby, 9 coal fired stations being closed soon with no new ones to replace them and so-called renewable energy being unable to make up the shortfall.  Power outages forecast for 3 or 4 years time.  Most backup electricity being supplied by France and Russia and even Scottish power being owned by Iberdrola.

My bill here is quite easy to understand,  6 cents per day standing charge and 16.5 cents per kWh.   In Britain my supplier had 14 different tariffs, depending on amount of standing charge, how you paid, how much you used etc.  10 to 35p a day standing charge and 10 to 15p a kWh depending on the standing charge.  Of course, both countries stick VAT on top.  I believe the British government is bringing in a rule for the suppliers to only have 5 tariffs to cut down on the confusion.

And as forSpain being the most expensive in Europe,  I take it you mean apart from Germany,  Belgium,  Cyprus,  Austria,  Denmark and a host of other countries which are even more expensive, Germany being considerably so? 

The charge in Spain will be 19 cents after the beginning of January.   3 rises in Britain since October with another on in january will put the average at 16p per kWh which is, erm, let me think, oh yes, 19 cents.

So Britain is in a worse state for electricity production and storage plus the cost per kWh will be the same but with much higher standing charges.

Keep searching tyeinternet. I'm sure you'll find some real story to fire up the outrage bus!

"Apologies for spelling, puncuation etc due to damn predictive text and fat fingers on my tablet"

 

 

This message was last edited by bobaol on 28/12/2012.

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 This isn't trawling the internet for any old story,please don't try to turn the thread around, you only have to  turn on the radio or pick up a newspaper. It's been the talk of the week in Spain amongst the Spanish and one can understand if there is a rise in price for a good reason and it is understood by everyone, but no one seems to be able to explain why there is a rise and why it is constantly more expensive to produce electricity. Just saying it costs more is not good enough neither here in Spain nor in the UK . There is nothing grumpy about discussing an important issue like energy in a country where you live, are we only supposed to talk about positive things and post happy news like the weather forecast for the next 15 days. I bet that'll cheer people up a bit. I love Spain and prefer it to the UK, the only comparison I am making to the rest of Europe is that other countries seem the produce energy in a more efficient way, I'm not interested in how the UK really runs its system, if it's worse or not. If it happened to be better then maybe Spain could learn something, but from what you are saying it seems it's just as bad, but that doesn't influence what is happening here.  It is a contructive observation and doesn't mean at all that I am trying to stir any outrage in the slightest, just trying to understand something that no one has tried to explain yet. Does anyone really understand the tariff deficit and how the electricity auctions really work? I have been listening to radio progammes all week and all the economic journalists invited were just as baffled and incapable of explaining clearly how the whole pricing model worked. So, does anyone understand it?

ps . Spain was charging  €0,1959 in May this year, so it's going to be slightly higher by the end of January, when the UK was charging at the same time €0,1419 according the EU's energy website. Actually this year only 8 countries out of the 27 were higher  than Spain, so clearly it's not just a Spanish problem, but also shows how 19 countries can produce cheaper energy for their inhabitants. Surely there is something to learn from this.

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Solar energy can be efficient ( but limited )in hot countrys, but wind farms are not.

We waste money on windmills to keep the green / lefty politicians in their jobs.

Nuclear power using the new super efficient stations ,is the ONLY cost effective way.

 

 

 

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"
And to top it all the latest in the paper this week 3% rise in January and anybody going over 10% of their average consumption (what is everybodys average) there will be a charge of between 1 % & 8 % work that one out- "

I might be wrong, but I think it's the average consumption for your potencia, in the bands, 3-4, 4-5 etc, and the higher your potencia, the higher the surcharge. This is not dissimilar to the pricing structure that was in place before they introduced the TUR. I seem to remember being surcharged whenever I went over 500kkw in a month

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I (selfishly), am also only interested in our (Spanish) electricity supplies and the billing which are, pretty complicated to say the least, I also think it was a bad move to privatise the suppliers, as there seems to be only one, although you can get your billing from a different source (the supplier is the same).
Solar voltaic panels should be the answer, this obviously has its drawbacks at night but most usage surely occurs during working or daylight hours; On a recent visit to the UK, I visited Plymouth and was surprised how many houses had their roof covered with “solar panels” all feeding back to the “grid”, upon further investigation a friend told me he had a display of his energy usage or savings, on his mobile phone. Now it seems to me that if these “panels” can work in Plymouth England and make real savings to the customer and, ultimately to the National power supplies, it “goes without saying” that it will work here especially on the Costa del Sol so, an investment by the Spanish Government could create jobs by manufacturing panels (voltaic), and more jobs installing them (possibly subsidised to encourage purchase), and the savings must be enormous, less oil imports, less gas or coal usage and of course less greenhouse gasses as well as all of the benefits of employment to the population and taxes paid by the employees and suppliers.

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I assume you are all talking about Endessa?

I am changing to Iberdrola whosay the bills will be in English, and prices fixed until 2015 - we will see

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[quote]I am changing to Iberdrola who say the bills will be in English, and prices fixed until 2015 - we will see[/quote] Companies are flocking here, so they can say no price increases etc... As they know the consumer here won't do anything about when they increase prices, they know the Govt. don't give a dam and the OCU has so little effect, what's the point. One of the reasons for the increase is that the Govt owes the Electric companies billions and is letting them increase prices. Why not, just let the little guy install a solar panel that CAN connect to your metre, get mostly free electric and GIVE the rest to the electric company to sell on and this can be used to REDUCE the debt the Govt owe the electric companies...... Now that's a good idea.....so no chance of it happening. Happy New Year all

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My Iberdrola bills have been in English since I requested it 3 years ago.  They are simple to understand (even when they were in Spanish) and depends on the amount of power you have contracted for.  Mine is 5.5 which is sufficient.  

mac75, it was your comment on Spain has the most expensive electrical bill in all of Europe 

which was obviously wrong.  There are many countries in Europe with higher charges.  The last printed bill I had from Iberdrola in November was 16.196 cents per kWh with a standing charge of 6.8 cents per day based on my contract.  Where that 19.5 cents per kWh came from in May I have no idea.  Maybe brickwork is right and Endesa charge a lot more but those are the figures on my latest bill.  BBC says that, with the 8 to 10 percent price rises in UK, average cost will rise from 14p to 16p which is very close, if not above, the price being charged in Spain.  

UK nuclear power stations are coming to the end of their life and are being decommissioned.  By 2023, 30% of the power being generated by them will cease.  The only possibly new one is to be build by EDF, a French company, but this has thrown up a lot of objections from the anti-nuclear industry.  The coal fired ones are also old and no longer meet the EU carbon emissions directives.  An OfGem report in October said that the spare capacity in UK will reduce from 14% to less than 3% by 2015

Wind power, as said by others, is insufficient to make up the shortfall (in Spain as well as UK) so maybe solar power is the way to go?  I was led to believe all new houses in Spain from a few years ago had to have these fitted but I don't see much evidence of that unless they've managed to hide them a bit better.  The average cost for these (in UK as I can't find Spanish figures) is around £2.500 per Kw so, for my currently contracted 5.5 Kw it would be £13,750.  That means my current average bill of around 80 euros a month would take almost 18 years to pay off the investment.  

Anyone got a bike so I can hook it up to the generator and get the missus pedalling away?  Or a few giant hamsters on a revolving wheel?

 

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 This thread is not aimed at Endesa or Iberdrola or gas natural, in fact not any compnay. It is about how these compnaies dertime the price of energy along with the government. If electricity goes up, it goes up for all of them, so keeping prices fixed until 2015 is not entirely true, they may keep a small part of the tariff fixed as a bonus for new customers, but the rest will fluctuate acordingly.

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My simple point was about all of the sunshine we get here on the CDS, surley if countries in northan Europe can utilise the sun using solar panels (voltaic), surley we can and the benifits to employment and the economy must be benificial.

Yes, new homes are obliged to install solar panels, but these are water heating panels which are of course of some benifit.

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I am aware of Spain's impressive achivements in solar power generation but, have you seen many homes with the solar panels of the voltaic type? If Spain is generating all of this "free" energy, why do electricity prices rise so much for the consumer with the costs linked to the price of oil?

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 Hi,

if you have less than 10KW petential connected you go to the "last resort" price, fixed by the government.

Beware all those are without VAT (IVA) at 21 % and the 5% energy tax....

So having a 4,8Kw connection (25Amps) and using 4800Kw/h a year your price per Kw/h is about 20 Eurocent.

14,2 cent plus IIVA =17.2 plus tax plus standing charge based on 4800Kw/k  a year it is ~ 0.20 € /Kw/h

So it is not cheap. There is only one way and it is up. All incentives have been stopped and net balance bill is still in the drawer. 

Término de potencia:

TPU = 21,893189 euros/kW y año.

Término de energía: TEU.

• Modalidad sin discriminación horaria:

  TEU0= 0,142208 euros/kWh.

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 Just how many years would it take to get any payback from the cost of installing a solar panel, and would it really be worth it?

 

This message was last edited by brickwork on 29/12/2012.

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That is a difficult question to answer and beyond me but, if there was a return to the individual consumer who was connected to the grid like the UK model, I would definately consider installing them and, if the Government backed the idea with manufacturing panels in Spain and local installers, everyone would benifit (except those who don't care what the price of electricity is).

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