Today, at 9 p.m., we are going to pay the most expensive kilowatt-hour of all of 2026. And this is just the first heat wave of the year
On Sunday, June 21 at 2 p.m., electricity was almost given away: it was paid at €0.02592 per kilowatt-hour, the lowest price in months. In a while, at nine at night, we are going to pay it at €0.89142, the most expensive price in all of 2026. Just over 24 hours difference and more than thirty times the price. What is happening here? The price of light. The wholesale market The price of electricity for today has already been determined: an average of 99.89 euros per MWh. That is, 75.96% more expensive than yesterday. Although the average is misleading (there is a huge difference between 32 at noon and 177 at night), the truth is that it helps to understand the problem. And that problem boils down to the fact that we are going to have dinner with energy prices that we have not seen since the cold wave of January 2025. What is this due to? In principle, three different things: the most obvious is the heat wave. It alone will trigger energy demand 6 GW more than normal, according to the consulting firm Optimize Energy. The second is the taxes that returned at the beginning of the month. And the last one is a small technical change that makes the valleys sink lower and the peaks rise higher. Now the market moves every 15 minutes instead of every hour. This, which, on average, should give the same result would allow the system to better match supply with demand. In theory, of course. The important thing is not the energy that comes in, but the energy that comes out. According to the system, due to the heat and the work schedule, demand will barely decrease until 10 pm. However, little by little, the sun will retreat, forcing turn on increasingly expensive plants. The rest is the market functioning: in a marginalist system, the last MW that enters is the one that defines the price of the rest. This Monday we have a ‘perfect storm’ and, consequently, an exorbitant price. And what can we do? If we have a fixed price, it should not affect us. If we have PVPC (and there are 10 million who have it), it is a good idea to spend only what is essential. But above all, think of this heat wave as a proof of concept. The truth is that this situation will occur whenever heat, little air and overpriced gas coincide. It is time to think about a domestic strategy to survive Spain’s great energy problem: the fact of have a huge amount of sun, but have nowhere to store it. Image | Torpical TidBits In Xataka | Renewable, coal or nuclear: where each country in the world gets its electricity from, in a detailed graph