MADRID, 30 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The average price of the wholesale electricity market, the so-called ‘pool’, closes the month of March at 20 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), which is half the average price recorded in February and 77.5% less than in March 2023, when it stood at 89.6 euros/MWh.
This Sunday, March 31, the average price of electricity will be 0.83 euros/MWh and for eight hours (from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.) it will be zero euros. The maximum price will be 3.20 euros/MWh and will be marked from 00:00 to 01:00 and from 20:00 to 22:00, according to provisional data from the Iberian Energy Market Operator (OMIE).
In this way, March closes at an average price of 20 euros/MWh, in a month in which a minimum price of 0.54 euros/MWh was set on the 10th, due to the high participation of renewable energies by the storms that have crossed the country.
In fact, on 16 of the 31 days in March the pool average was below the level of 10 euros/MWh, and in many hours the price was zero euros/MWh, although this price is not transferred then to the receipt exactly, since there are fixed costs for the electricity consumer for tolls, charges and system adjustments.
In February, the average daily price of the wholesale market stood at 40 euros/MWh, with a decrease of 46% compared to January.
This fact caused electricity to temporarily recover its Value Added Tax (VAT) of 21% since March, after the wholesale market price registered a lower average in February than 45 euros/MWh, the ceiling set in the Real. Decree of urgent measures.
The last Council of Ministers last year approved that the VAT on electricity would go from 5% to 10% and that this rate would be maintained until the end of 2024, as long as the condition that MWh prices in the wholesale market were met. remain high, above those 45 euros/MWh.
Specifically, the VAT would become 21% whenever the wholesale price was below that bar in the calendar month prior to the last day of billing. That is, all invoices that include consumption for at least one day in March will have VAT of 21%. Only households with the social bonus are free from this increase, since their VAT will remain at 10% throughout 2024.
In any case, the ‘pool’ does not exactly represent the final amount in the price of electricity for a consumer covered by the regulated tariff, since with the entry in 2024 a new method of calculating the PVPC was adopted, which incorporates a basket of medium and long-term prices to avoid strong fluctuations, without losing short-term price references that encourage savings and efficient consumption.
Specifically, the proportion of linkage with the pool price will be progressively reduced, to incorporate the references of the futures markets, so that these represent 25% in 2024, 40% in 2025 and 55% at from 2026.
