On Sunday, the average electricity price for regulated-rate customers tied to the wholesale market will rise by 8.2 percent compared to Saturday, reaching as high as €185.87 per megawatt-hour (MWh), based on provisional data from the Iberian Energy Market Operator (OMIE) reported by Europa Press.
The price is determined by adding the wholesale market’s pool average to the compensation that demand must pay to combined-cycle power plants, in line with the Iberian framework known as the Iberian exception. This framework also governs gas price limits for electricity generation.
During the auction, the wholesale market pool average for Sunday is set at €145 per MWh. The highest price of the day is anticipated between 21:00 and 22:00, at €232.99 per MWh, while the minimum during the day, from 14:00 to 15:00, is projected at €88 per MWh.
The pool price plus a €40.87 per MWh compensation to gas companies forms the total bill faced by consumers who benefit from the measure, including those on regulated tariffs (PVPC) and some consumers on indexed rates in the free market.
Without the Iberian exception mechanism that caps gas costs for electricity generation, Spain’s electricity price would average €209.16 per MWh. This would leave regulated-rate customers bearing a higher burden and would result in roughly 11 percent higher costs on average for those customers in the absence of compensation.
The Iberian mechanism, which began operating on 15 June, places an average cap on gas for electricity generation at about €48.8 per MWh over a twelve-month window, providing a buffer for the winter period when energy prices tend to rise. As a result, generation costs can remain within more predictable bounds, though the mechanism itself can lead to higher short-term prices depending on daily market dynamics.
In addition, there is a special, Iberian exception pathway that targets natural gas at approximately €40 per MWh for electricity generation. This plan envisages an increase of €5 per MWh in the first six months, followed by stabilization through the remainder of the measure’s term, aiming to balance affordability with supply security during the transition period.