{"id":644660,"date":"2026-06-18T04:08:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644660\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T04:08:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:08:38","slug":"spanish-households-save-e10-a-month-thanks-to-renewables-expansion-report-finds-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644660\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish households save \u20ac10 a month thanks to renewables expansion, report finds | Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish households save \u20ac10 a month on electricity bills because of wind turbines and solar panels installed in the last five years, a report<\/a> has found.<\/p>\n

Typical energy bills would be 19% more expensive if electricity costs were still as tightly coupled to gas prices as in 2021, according to Ember, a climate thinktank. It found Spain\u2019s \u201cstrategic\u201d expansion of renewables since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 has shielded Spanish households from the latest rises in fossil fuel prices caused by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just had a 60% rise in gas prices and electricity bills in Spain basically haven\u2019t reacted \u2013 they actually got a bit cheaper in April,\u201d said Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember and the lead author of the report. \u201cThat\u2019s a clear and obvious contrast to the previous gas crisis, when electricity bills were climbing immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burning fossil gas is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity in Europe<\/a>, even before considering the health costs of the carbon emissions. The influence of gas on electricity prices in Spain fell from 52% of hours in 2021 to 9% of hours in the first five months of 2026, according to the analysis. In Italy, which has the highest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, gas influences the price 75% of the time.<\/p>\n

The report found electricity prices in Spain rose by about 50% in the first half of 2021 \u2013 in line with European gas prices \u2013 but remained \u201clargely unaffected\u201d by higher gas prices in 2026. The effects of volatility in the wholesale gas markets was seen only as higher price peaks during the dwindling periods when large volumes of gas had to be burned.<\/p>\n

Mar Reguant, an energy economist at Northwestern University, who was not involved in the report but whose research<\/a> findings painted \u201cthe same picture\u201d, said ambitious policy helped Spain make the most of favourable conditions. Compared with the rest of Europe, these include decent wind, \u201cunbeatable solar\u201d and pre-existing pumped hydropower storage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no question that Spain and Portugal are greatly benefiting from their early transition,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Iberian peninsula has a privileged position and has acted smartly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wind and solar generated 33% of Spain\u2019s electricity in 2021. By 2025, the share had risen to 42%.<\/p>\n

In other European countries that also expanded renewables at great speed \u2013 such as Germany, which increased its share of wind and solar in power generation from 28% to 45% in the last five years \u2013 the consumer benefits have been more muted as they have displaced other forms of energy, such as coal and nuclear.<\/p>\n

The analysis, which used data from March and April 2026, took a regulated electricity tariff paid by about one-third of Spanish households and modelled the size of the bill under a scenario in which renewables added in the last five years had not been installed.<\/p>\n

It accounted for balancing costs paid during periods when renewables generate too much or too little but did not consider the hidden costs society pays for different forms of power generation, such as increased health costs that fossil fuel pollution brings.<\/p>\n

Dr Diego Garc\u00eda Gusano, a senior energy planning researcher at Tecnalia, a Basque technology centre, who was not involved in the analysis, said Spain\u2019s gas-fired power plants still set the price during key hours and that frequent periods of very low prices were weakening the investment signal for further renewables.<\/p>\n

The slow deployment of storage and limited flexibility in electricity demand had \u201cintensified\u201d the situation, he added, preventing the system from efficiently absorbing excess renewable generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpain is less exposed to gas shocks than other countries, but it is not immune,\u201d Gusano said. \u201cThe bet on renewables is very sound, but much more is needed to make that bet structural and not circumstantial.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish households save \u20ac10 a month on electricity bills because of wind turbines and solar panels installed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}