A lot of wind, little cold and full gas storage in Europe create a perfect cocktail that has led to the price of electricity on the wholesale market to stand at 124.24 euros per megawatt-hour on average in November. That is the lowest price since August 2021, when Russia had started to put pressure on the gas tap but the war had not yet started. But the ‘good’ is short-lived and as of Wednesday electricity is back above the €200 per megawatt-hour barrier it had left behind in mid-October.

In mid-November, electricity prices began to fall and then plummeted, following in the wake of the drop in gas prices and then the wind started. But now the wind has died down and gas is going up again, explains Menta Energía consultant Francisco Valverde. The expert estimates that this month’s bill will be the cheapest of the year at a price of 70.5 euros for a consumer with 4.4 kilowatts of contracted power and a consumption of 3,500 kilowatt-hours per year.

These data only affect the nine million consumers in the regulated market who have a Voluntary Price for the Small Consumer (PVPC) tariff, the only one that can be contracted by the beneficiaries of the social bonus. In the free market the possibilities are infinite, as it is a price agreed between the marketer and the consumer that can be higher or lower than those of the PVPC tariff.

What will happen to electricity prices in December?

And what will happen in December? The last month of a year and the first month of the following year is usually a period in which there is a lot of wind power and that theoretically implies a cheaper wholesale price than with other technologies. But they are usually the most expensive months in the wholesale market, adds Valverde. Added to this is the arrival of cold weather and the rise in gas prices, depending on the consumption of storage in Spain and in other countries. The only thing that could reduce prices a little, says Valverde, would be the new renewable production, since in the last year some 4,000 new megawatts of wind and solar energy have come into operation.

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