When Manuel Izquierdo, owner of the Gran Vía cafeteria in the centre of Vila, is asked about the price of electricity, he is overcome by the demons: “It’s robbery. They’re really screwing us”. The uncontrolled electricity prices have become a new burden. “In the bars we have a lot of machinery. The coffee machine, the fridges… and in summer the air conditioning. When the electricity goes up, we feel it”, says the owner of this historic establishment on Avenida Isidor Macabich in Ibiza, who calculates that the increase in electricity costs him an extra 400 euros a month: “In a business like this, the ‘off-peak hours’ do not work for us. We have to cop it and hope it goes down again”.
In each bar, they do their own accounts, although everywhere they agree that the electricity bills are on average 25% to 35% more expensive than a year ago. For example, Qilin Huang, from Es Café, located next to Paz de Vila Park, shows his latest electricity bill and compares the annual evolution. In the last month he paid 661€, a lower amount than in summer – in the hot months, air conditioning causes the bill to soar to 900€ – but considerably higher than in autumn last year. In his case, the difference is 200€ more. “It’s the way it is,” he sums up resignedly.
A similar mood is expressed by José Ángel Marí, owner of the bar Es Cruce, in Sant Rafel. It is a large establishment and, in his case, the increase in expenditure is greater: “This last month I have paid almost 2,000 euros in electricity, 600 euros more than usual,” he says, “and it shows, I think it shows! Marí recalls the Government’s promise that by the end of the year the price of electricity would be the same as it was before the current crisis, but he is sceptical: “I think it’s an impossible promise to keep. I don’t think it will go down”.
Electricity bills: everything more expensive
Although the businesses consulted explain that the bill has increased by an average of 30%, the truth is that the price of electricity in the wholesale market has risen in a year by up to 600%. In October 2020 the price per megawatt/hour was 35.56 euros in the wholesale market, while the average for October 2021 was 204.09 euros. An escalation that began in June, when the price doubled to 87.26 euros per megawatt hour, to reach its peak on 7th October, with what has been the record figure so far: 288.53 euros.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.