€140.23 per MWh on Thursday: 10th all-time high electricity price since mid-July
Cost continues to soar, peaking at €148 from 9 to 10 pm, as Spain rules out regulating market
For the 10th time since mid-July, Spanish residents will pay record-high rates for electricity, this time on Thursday.
Averaging at €140.23 per MWh throughout the day, it will be most expensive – €148 per MWh – from 9 pm to 10 pm, and cheapest – €137.45 MWh – from 4 am to 5 am.
Before this summer, prices had last broken records in January 2012, when a MWh cost around €103.76.
Spain will not regulate market
This comes only days after the Spanish government stated that it would not step in to regulate prices.
In a four-hour appearance before Congress, Spain's ecological transition minister, Teresa Ribera, said that doing so would be "against EU law."
For her, these kinds of regulations "end up turning into a lack of confidence in the country and in fines with interests which oblige us to the electricity companies back."
"We have to respect constitutional and EU law. Not doing so would be extremely risky, even if this would look attractive in the short term."
Reasons for soaring costs
Attributed to the rising cost of the gas used by combined cycle power plants as well as carbon emission trading and the limited use of renewables, electricity is now around three times pricier than it was a year ago when prices decreased following a pandemic-related drop in demand.
Experts had already warned that soaring prices were not going away any time soon.
"We have to get used to seeing these prices until the end of the year," Marc Bonet, who is in charge of business development at Barcelona Energia, told the Catalan News Agency.
'Lack of transparency' of some companies
New tariffs came into force on June 1, with higher, middle, and cheaper rates.
Spain's competition regulation authority (CNMC) expressed concerns that some companies made the most of these changes by raising prices by up to 30% more than what the tariffs allow without warning their customers.
CNMC denounces a "lack of transparency" of several companies – whose names have not been revealed – and calls for those affected to be compensated.