This energy crisisby the blow of successive records light pricesmade more and more citizens know how to distinguish between different electricity tariffs, became familiar with counting in megawatt-hours, knew that: Iberian exception It’s not just lunch or a nap anymore, and they should be aware of when it’s more expensive to run the washing machine.
Fears about the electricity bill caused the bill to become more visible than before. electricity market price varies at different times of the day, the cost for millions of households varies from hour to hour. The next big revolution in electricity bills, at the request of the European Union, HE light price Change it every 15 minutes, not every hour. But this is a revolution that will begin later than expected.
Currently the wholesale electricity market – generators, distributors and traders They buy and sell the electricity that will be consumed the next day at a different price every hour. Now the electrical system operator (power grid) sets the required electricity generation and estimated hourly consumption, and the Spanish electricity market manager (OMIE) matches prices hourly based on supply and demand and the type of energy produced.
The next step is to make this adjustment every 15 minutes as determined by European regulations for all community electricity markets and others outside the EU but connected to the European system. wholesale market It will stop marking 24 prices each day and set a total of 96 prices. per day.
The initial plan was that some European countries, including Spain, would start setting prices every quarter hour in early 2024, but unresolved technical issues will delay the new system until at least January 2025.
Problems with the algorithm
The Energy Regulatory Cooperation Agency (ACER), of which the Spanish CNMC is also a member, gave approval to the managers of the European wholesale markets. delay new formula due to “algorithm performance issues” According to the latest reports submitted by the operator of the Iberian electricity market (OMIE) to the Committee of Market Representatives, in the context of 15 minutes of the daily market.”
In any case, due to difficulties in coordinating the functioning of all European markets from the electricity sector, it is foreseen that the determination of about a hundred different prices every day could go beyond January 2025. the algorithm used allows matching calculations to be done with sufficient urgency. Faced with the intention of gradually implementing the new system in different country groups, the decision was finally made. do it in all markets simultaneously, choosing a model called a “big-bang app”.
Operators of all European electricity markets are working on the design of a new algorithm that will allow prices to match every 15 minutes. The aim was to open a testing period this year to make the algorithm fully ready and to ensure that its operation is safe and reliable. In principle, this testing phase will not finally start until the beginning of 2024.
Direct impact on millions of invoices
The price of the electricity market, known as the pool, directly stipulates the bill already paid by the 8.5 million customers under the pool. regulated electricity tariff o Voluntary Price for Small Consumers (PVP), currently a different price is charged each hour for the energy component of the bill.
Ministry of Energy Transition finalizes a reform Regulated tariff to come into effect in 2024 and trying to reduce its volatility by linking the formation of its price not only to the daily electricity market, but also to other relatively stable long-term electricity markets.
About 19.5 million small customers with free market rates have stable prices and not immediately affected by market movementsonly when utilities review rates annually or biennially and examine the evolution of prices in those reviews. swimming pool commonly used reference.
In the summer of 2021, just as the effects of an incipient energy crisis are beginning to be felt, another legislative change is already in the hands of many citizens. The price of light varies according to the time it is consumed. The government and the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) then re-issued the electricity bill for all consumers – not just regulated tariff households – by imposing different prices on the issued portion of the bill for different time periods. Hours with less demand are cheaper, and hours with the most consumption are more expensive.
The aim of the reform, which went into effect in June with different hourly price ranges, was to encourage customers to transfer some of their electricity consumption to times of lower simultaneous demand (especially at night) to avoid system saturation and make new investments in infrastructure expansion unnecessary. . Reducing the regulated portion of the receipt, which the government implemented to mitigate the rise in prices and the growing weight in the production of solar power plants, is now on the contrary, the central hours of the day are the times when the market prices are lowest..