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ELECTRICITY

The cheapest rates Spain’s electricity companies don’t want you to know about

Finding a cheaper tariff is one of the best ways to counteract skyrocketing electricity bills, but a leading consumer watchdog has warned Spain’s electricity providers are not always open to telling customers about the best deal they can get.

Published: 23 September 2022 09:57 CEST
Updated: 22 October 2022 09:56 CEST
cheapest rates electricity spain
Finding the more affordable rates can be difficult to do, and often Spanish electricity companies make them deliberately difficult to get hold of. Photo: Colin Behrens/Pixabay

Like in many parts of the world, inflation triggered by the war in Ukraine has made the energy market incredibly volatile and sent household electricity bills soaring in Spain. The average bill reached €158 in August, an eye-watering increase of over 60 percent compared to 2021.

To give you some idea of just how much prices have risen in Spain, in August of 2020 the average electricity bill was €64, in 2021 it was €93, and in August 2022 €158.

According to recent figures from Eurostat, electricity bills in Spain have risen eight times more than in France and four times more than in Germany. Whereas the average Spanish household paid 60 percent more in August compared to 2021, in France it rose by just 7.7 percent and in Germany 16.6 percent.

The Spanish government has tried various methods to ease the burden on households. In June the tax (IVA) on electricity bills was cut from 21 percent to 10 percent, and then it was quickly reduced again from 10 percent to 5. The European Commission agreed to cap gas used for power generation at €40 per megawatt-hour known as the ‘Iberian Exception’, with the price limit projected to average out at €50 over the coming 12 months.

READ MORE: Spain to cut electricity tax by half to ease inflation pain 

The Spanish government predicted the measure — which will be in effect until May 31st 2023 — would lead to a reduction in household energy prices of up to 20 percent, yet it has done little to limit the rise of electricity bills so far.

READ MORE:

Unsurprisingly, many Spaniards are now seeking ways to cut down on their bills, whether it be by using the washing machine at certain times to take advantage of off-peak hours, or limiting their use of air-conditioning.

Another method of saving on electricity costs is finding cheaper tariffs.

Yet finding the more affordable rates can be difficult to do, and often the electricity companies make them deliberately difficult to get hold of. That’s according to Spain’s Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), which have identified some of the cheapest tariffs on the market today. 

Understanding peak and off-peak

Spanish electricity companies offer different prices depending on the time of day you use your electrical appliances. The tariffs are often broken down into hora punta (peak time), hora llana (flat time), and hora valle (off-peak).

If you live in Spain, this is why you might’ve heard the incessant spinning of washing machines through the night in recent months. Nowadays many people simply wait until the weekend, when the tariffs are always off-peak.

So, if you’re thinking about switching, which are some of the best electricity rates you can find in Spain?

Repsol Tarifa Largo Plazo

According to the OCU, the Repsol Tarifa ‘Largo Plazo’ can only be found via this link, because the offer is actually hidden on the Repsol website. And for good reason, too. The Repsol tariff is among the best offers the  market in terms of price per kWh consumed, although the power for off-peak time is a little more than some of the other offers on the list.

The tariff is non-permanent, with a fixed price rate for 3 years.

kWh Prices

Price per kWh consumed: €0.17/kWh.

Peak hours: €29.90 per kW.
Off-peak hours: €29.90 per kW.

Iberdrola Online Plan

The Iberdrola Online Plan, which you can find here, is only available until September 30th, so be sure to take advantage of it as soon as possible.

Using Iberdrola’s online tool, you can select a kW rate and it will give you price estimates for the different values. If you’re environmentally minded, Iberdrola’s Online Plan claims to use 100 percent green electricity, so you can enjoy renewable energy and reduce your CO2 emissions.

There’s also 14 hours of savings during the night up until mid-morning.

This plan is only for customers who take out the contract online, as the name suggests, and features entirely electronic billing.

kWh Prices

Price per kWh consumed: €0.159353 + metered gas cost (in August €0.161529 /kWh).
Price per kW contracted during peak hours (fixed term): €30.66747.
Price per kW contracted during off-peak hours (fixed term): €4.104338. 

Not the prices will be revised in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on January 1st. 

Octopus Energy

Octopus Energy tariffs are not permanent and is all done online, which allows you the flexibility to move around again in the future if you come across a better offer. Octopus offer two fixed prices:

Octopus 3: price per kWh consumed during peak hours is 0.254 €/kWh; at flat time 0.209 €/kWh; and at off-peak hours 0.185 €/kWh.

Octopus Relax: price per kWh consumed of 0.212 €/kWh.

kWh Prices (both Octopus tariffs) 

Peak hours (fixed term): €32.85.
Off-peak hours (fixed term): €6.57.

Iberdrola Special Plan

The Iberdrola Special Plan offers a 15 percent discount during the first year, and its kWh prices for both on and off-peak are competitive with other cheaper tariffs.

kWh Prices

Price per kWh consumed: €0.178662 (minus the 15 percent extra discount) but plus a gas metering cost (which in August was €0.161529/kWh.)

Peak hours (fixed term): €30.52381
Off-peak hours (fixed term): €3.512901

Endesa ‘One Luz’ Tariff 

Endesa is currently offering the ‘One Luz’ tariff, which offers a 10 percent discount on consumption and an additional 10 percent reduction throughout the first year.

kWh Prices

Price per kWh consumed: €0.189 (plus the 10 percent +10 percent discount) + the metered gas cost (which in August was €0.161529/KWh).

Peak hours (fixed term): €33.86.

Off-peak hours (fixed term): €7.9973

Total Energies

Another interesting option is Total Energies, who offer entirely personalised pricing plans. Basically, Total Energies want to attract your business by outdoing your current rate. In order to receive a quote and see how it stacks up against your current provider, you simply upload a copy of your current bill to the website and Total Energies make an offer, often bettering your current rate.

If they make an offer, Total Energies promise a discount lasting for 4 years, although the price on which the discount is fixed is only valid for 12 months.

READ MORE: 11 ways to cut costs as Spain’s electricity rates beat all-time price records

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ELECTRICITY

How would Spain react if there was a major blackout?

Doomsday series and fake news have made the prospect of a national and Europe-wide outage seem outlandish, and yet we come close to such a critical event. How would Spanish authorities react if there was a days-long power cut?

Published: 28 June 2024 12:48 CEST
How would Spain react if there was a major blackout?

In January, 2021, a technical fault at an electricity plant in Croatia almost knocked out Europe’s entire power grid.

In 2003, 56 million people were left without electricity for several hours in Italy and Switzerland, but there have been outages that have affected far more people and lasted longer, such as the 2012 India blackouts that cut off the supply of electricity for two days to 620 million people. 

Even the entire island of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands has been hit by two major outages in recent years.

Sri Lanka, Turkey, Zanzibar, Brazil, Pakistan, Venezuela – there are countless other blackouts over the past two decades caused by software errors, network overloads, accidents and adverse weather conditions. 

Most feared of all is the prospect of a solar storm so powerful that the grid couldn’t be restored within a matter of hours, days or weeks. 

Such an apocalyptic scenario was depicted in the 2022 Movistar+ series Apagón (Blackout in English), which follows several people in Spain as they survive in a world without electricity.

The prospect of a solar storm setting us back two centuries seems far-fetched and has been exploited and overblown by fake news sources.

A geomagnetic storm caused by a solar storm did cause a nine-hour outage in Quebec in 1989, meaning that it isn’t impossible but by no means as permanent a blackout as some doomsdayers fear. 

However, as the Covid-19 pandemic taught us, even the most unfathomable can sometimes become reality.

So what if this scenario were to hit Spain or the world as a whole?

Spain’s Environment Teresa Ribera flatly ruled out that this could affect Spain and defended that “we can rule it out from our future concerns” despite the fact that Europe’s electricity grid is linked from London all the way to Istanbul.

According to Ribera, the Spanish energy system “is almost an energy island and as we have almost double the installed power than what we use, the risk of a type of blackout due to a system failure in third countries is very limited”.

Madrid authorities are not so convinced by the national government’s stance, and in 2021 called for a nationwide action plan ready to be executed jointly across the regions in the event of a major blackout. 

In 2017, the Spanish Association of Civil Protection for Spatial Weather filed in the Spanish Congress a request to develop a national ‘anti-solar blackout’ plan but this somewhat bizarrely got passed on to the agricultural department and forgotten about. 

They ended up drawing up their own report studying what could be done in all manner of scenarios: accidents at power generation plants, scarcity of essential supplies (food, water, fuel and electricity), and meteorological events. 

After the freak snow storm that brought the Spanish capital to a standstill for several days that very year, it comes as no surprise that Madrid authorities want to be prepared in future.

Protocol measures went from establishing shelters, to a hierarchy of importance in terms of essential services and infrastructure, from the fire service to hospitals.

Specific recommendations for citizens included stocking up on electric generators, batteries, candles, analogue radio receivers and basic foods that do not require cold storage.

But the truth remains that there is no handbook available for Spain’s national government to execute in the event of a major blackout. 

What it has established recently is its SMS alert system, whereby everyone on the country’s phone network receives a message warning them of imminent dangers or risks. 

At this point in time, Spanish authorities simply don’t consider the risk of a major blackout to be worrisome enough to require a detailed action plan. 

The impossibility of Spain being completely off the grid is shared by those in charge of it – Red Eléctrica de España (REE) – but a Europe-wide blackout would undeniably still bring problems to most of the 48 million people living in this country.

READ ALSO: What are the chances of a big earthquake happening in Spain?

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