Put a washing machine by night Already is not synonymous of saving. One year after the Government and the National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) revolutionized the electricity bill by dividing the electricity price according to The time Of consumption and when many consumers had already adapted to their habits to consume electricity at night, the so-called ‘Iberian exception’ turns a reality that has lasted little. The night period happens to be one of the most expensive of the day, after the peak hour par excellence, between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., while the period of low prices is reduced to the early afternoon, between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.
The reason for this change is because the compensation for him cap on the price of gas in the electricity market it is higher in the hours of less consumption (at night) than in those with higher consumption (during the day). “At night, since there is no solar energy and it has been a bad hydrological year, if there is little wind, fossil energies occupy a very high percentage of the generation and divide compensation for that hour among consumersbeing few this (compensation) is very high & rdquor ;, explains the general director of Ecological Transition of the Valencian Community, Fresh Peter.
You only have to see any of the graphs published daily by the Iberian market operator (OMIE) on this compensation to understand the effect. The highest price always usually is between 4 and 6 in the morning and the lower Come in 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. This is so because two things happen first thing in the afternoon: the demand is greater, so the amount of compensation is more spread out, but above all because it is the period with the highest solar generation and, therefore, the lowest fossil generation. .
There may be days that this trend changes. The key is the wind because at night there is no sun. But Fresco warns that the summer is not a particularly windy time“unless there is a storm & rdquor ;, so it can be foreseen nightly prices in the coming weeks that will remain high for compensation. Other different things will be what happens in the fall, when the wind begins to work at full capacity. So the renewable percentage is likely to accelerate and compensation to be lower. “summer is not ideal for the mechanism, it is normal that it works better as the months go by & rdquor ;, he adds.
The price you pay for electricity a regulated consumer with a PVPC rate It is made up three main variables: the daily market price (auction), which is usually cheaper at night than during the day; the price of tolls and chargeswhich are higher during the day than at night and are now contained to avoid a greater increase in the final price, and the compensation price combined cycle power plants for the difference between the gas cap and the real cost, which is more expensive at night than during the day.
The result of this equation It will depend on the amount of fossil generation of the day, the price of gas and the number of consumers affected by the adjustment of the gas compensation. Such a day as today is cheaper to put a washing machine between 10 and 13 hours (in the middle of rush hour) than to have put it between 3 and 8 in the morning (valley hour). “It will no longer be the washing machine at 3 in the morning, now it is better at 3 in the afternoon & rdquor ;, confirms Fresco.
A year of changes
The Government and the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) took two years to create the mechanism that established three time slots – rush hour, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.; flat hour, from 08 to 10, from 14 to 18 and from 22 to 00 hours and valley, from 00 to 08 hours, holidays and weekends–. The system had a huge controversy because the hours of greatest consumption were the most expensive and those of least consumption, the cheapest, despite the fact that this is precisely its objective: encourage consumer behavior change so as to lighten the load curve of the electrical network.
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However, the fatal coincidence between its entry into force and the rise in natural gas prices (due to the reduction in the flow from Russia) led the Government to maintain these sections for less than four months: from June to September. On September 14, with several light records on its back, the Ministry for Ecological Transition launched new measures to reduce the price of the electricity bill. Among them, the 96% reduction in bill chargeswhich would be assumed with the cut in the ‘benefits fallen from the sky’ to the electricity companies, although the cut was never such and that made the differences in prices between hours disappear, although the night was still the cheapest period of the day.
In January of this year, the Executive reduced this reduction from 96% of the charges to 30.9% and that led to the time slots remaining missing, although peak hours rose slightly above the previous three months, but very far from the prices of the peak period of June 2021. The cheapest were still the night hoursalthough the first part of the afternoon (between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.) also began to join then due to the entry into generation of new solar energy Now him Iberian mechanism it again forces a change in the rules of the game and the night disappears as a cheap period to leave only the afternoon.