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A guide to your new Spanish electricity bill
Electricity bills—a breakdown
- Electricity meter hire fee. If you don’t own an electricity meter, this charge will appear on your bill. In fact, your retailer is obligated to charge you for using the meter since it belongs to the distributor. Hire fees for digital meters vary between €0.81 and €1.36 per month.
- Consumption charge. This is the cost for the amount of energy you’ve actually used, measured in kilowatts per hour (kWh). To calculate this, multiply the price per kilowatt by the number of kilowatts you’ve consumed. If you use a company in the free market, you’ll pay either a fixed rate or a two- or three-level variable rate. However, if you use a company on the regulated market, you’ll be subject to a three-level rate system—peak, standard, and off-peak.
- Power charge. This is a general, fixed charge for the contracted power, which you’ll need to pay whether you consume electricity or not. With the arrival of the new electricity bills in Spain, it’s possible to register one contracted power for your home and another for your business.
- Taxes. Both free-market-company and regulated-market-company customers have to pay tax to Hacienda. The tax you’re charged on your electricity is 5.113% of the total of the power and consumption charge, and you’ll need to pay it regardless of whether you use any electricity. Plus, you’ll need to add 21% VAT if you’re in mainland Spain or the Balearic Islands, 7% if you’re in the Canary Islands, and 1% if you’re in Ceuta or Melilla.
- Tolls. These make up a significant chunk of the electricity bill. They include transport and distribution costs, as well as other indirect costs related to the supply of electricity.
- Retailer markups. This is your payment to your electricity supply company for the services you’ve used (for example, to cover the purchase of energy on the market for consumption, costs involved with changes to your power level, and billing costs).
- Fixed costs. These are made up of transport and distribution network costs, investments in renewable energy, the higher production costs in non-mainland Spain, and annual payments to recover any shortfall in payments. These costs are part of what are now called the access tariff or toll.
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Electricity time bands
Off-peak hours | 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. weekdays, and all day on weekends and bank holidays |
Standard hours | 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. |
Peak hours | 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m |
Understanding your Spanish electricity bill
- Billing details. This is the first piece of information you’ll see on your bill. It includes the name of your electricity company—this will also tell you if you’re in the free or the regulated market—as well as the bill number, the bill reference or code, the billing date, and the billing period.
- Bill summary. This is the amount of money you’re charged for the contracted power and the amount of energy you’ve actually consumed, as well as taxes, additional services like hire fees for your electricity meter, and any monitoring devices or other items.
- Information on electricity consumption. This section offers you information about your current electricity consumption, as well as your consumption last month or in the previous billing period. It also tells you if it’s an estimated reading—which will be the case if you can’t take meter readings—or an actual reading, which have become more common since the introduction of smart meters.
- Contract information. In this important section you’ll find information such as the name of the contract holder, their tax identification number, and their CUPS number (an alphanumeric code for identifying houses and businesses), as well as the meter number, the rate type of rate, the contracted power, the contract reference number, the address the electricity is supplied to, the name of the retailer and the distributor, the contract end date, and the access tariff or toll.
- Bill details. This section details all the items you pay each month, including contracted power, energy consumed, rent, taxes, and the tolls, as well as the total bill amount.
- Information for the consumer. The final section of your bill contains information on contracted services and other contract options. It also has information on the rates subsidy for vulnerable people and a link to the website of the Spanish National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC), where you can find offers from other retailers. At the bottom of the bill, you’ll also find information concerning where the energy you’ve consumed came from, as well as its environmental impact.
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Your electricity bill with N26
FAQs
- When do the new electricity bills start in Spain?
- What are the new electricity time bands?
- What’s the cost of energy in Spain right now?
- What taxes do I pay as part of my electricity bill?
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