The wholesale electricity market, the so-called pool, continues this Tuesday with the trend of extremely low prices of recent days and will register seven hours with negative prices, between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Between those hours the hourly price will be between -0.01 and -0.02 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). In addition, there will be another thirteen hours in which the price will be zero euros, according to data from the Iberian Energy Market Operator (OMIE) collected by Europa Press.
The average pool price for this Tuesday will be 1.29 euros per MWh, with a maximum of 14.72 euros/MWh between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., while the minimum will be that negative value of -0.02 euros/MWh.
With this Tuesday there will now be six days this month in which the ‘pool’ has registered negative prices in some of its hours, a fact that had never occurred until April 1.
It must be taken into account that this is not transferred as is to the consumers’ electricity bill, nor will they be paid for consuming electricity. For those who have a fixed rate, from the free market, you will not notice anything. For those who are covered by the regulated tariff (PVPC), the price charged for their consumption includes items such as marketing costs, tolls and charges. Thus, the price per kWh for the final consumer will remain at a minimum of 0.04 euros in the early hours of this Tuesday and 0.13 euros at 9:00 p.m.
The significant presence of renewable generation at the beginning of April, in the form of wind and solar, with a notable participation of hydraulics with the water dammed from the important rains at Easter, places the average in the first nine days of the market month wholesale at 3.62 euros/MWh.
In March, one of the lowest average pool prices in history for a month was already seen, with 20 euros/MWh, half that of the average price recorded in February and 77.5 percent less than in March 2023. when it stood at 89.6 euros/MWh.
In February, after registering an average lower than 45 euros/MWh, the ceiling set in the Royal Decree of urgent measures, electricity temporarily recovered its Value Added Tax (VAT) of 21% since March, something that will remain at this month of April.
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 exempt from this increase, since their VAT will remain at ten percent throughout 2024.
Furthermore, 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 prices in the medium and long term to avoid strong fluctuations, without losing the short-term price references that encourage savings and efficient consumption.
In this way, the proportion of linkage with the pool price will be progressively reduced, to incorporate the references of the futures markets, so that they represent 25% in 2024, 40% in 2025 and 55% from 2026.
