Abstract
Over the last decade the residential electricity price in most EU Member States has been increasing. Even after the introduction of significant reforms such as the liberalisation of the electricity market. This upward trend is in response to the development of different price components along the electricity supply chain. In order to identify and analyse these components for EU-Member States, a more detailed price apportionment than those offered by public sources like Eurostat and IEA is necessary. The methodology proposed in this study analyses the development of the residential electricity price and its main components between 2002 and 2012 for Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. The main drivers of the price trends observed for these four countries are subsequently identified, quantified and compared. Furthermore, the residential expenditure on electricity in each country is examined in connection with the evolution of residential electricity consumption. The results show how and to what extent the residential electricity price for the selected EU Member States depends on price components such as the electricity wholesale price, the gross margin, network expenditures, energy taxes and other levies related to the decarbonisation of the national energy system. Furthermore, this detailed analysis of residential electricity prices throughout the last decade provides a sufficient data basis to draw some prospective conclusions in terms of a short-term price outlook.
Zusammenfassung
Der Haushaltsstrompreis ist in den meisten EU-Mitgliedsstaaten in den letzten zehn Jahren gestiegen – selbst nach grundlegenden Reformen wie der Liberalisierung des Strommarktes. Dieser Trend ist auf die Entwicklung der verschiedenen Preisbestandteile entlang der Strom-Lieferkette zurückzuführen. Um diese Komponenten des Haushaltsstrompreises für die EU-Mitgliedstaaten zu identifizieren und zu analysieren, ist eine detailliertere Aufschlüsselung des Preises erforderlich als sie von den öffentlichen Quellen wie Eurostat und IEA bereitgestellt wird. Die in dieser Studie vorgeschlagene Methodik ermöglicht die Entwicklung des Haushaltsstrompreises und seiner wichtigsten Komponenten zwischen 2002 und 2012 für Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Großbritannien zu analysieren. Ausgehend von den Ergebnissen dieser Analyse werden die wichtigsten Einflussfaktoren der Preisentwicklung für diese vier Länder identifiziert, quantifiziert und verglichen. Darüber hinaus werden die Stromausgaben in den einzelnen Ländern im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung der Strompreise untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, in welcher Form und in welchem Umfang die Haushaltsstrompreise für Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Großbritannien von den einzelnen Preisbestandteilen abhängen wie dem Strom-Großhandelspreis, der Bruttomarge, Netzentgelte, Energie-Steuern und andere Abgaben im Zusammenhang mit der Dekarbonisierung des nationalen Energiesystems. Des Weiteren bietet diese detaillierte Analyse von Strompreisen für den Haushaltssektor über die letzten zehn Jahre eine umfassende Datengrundlage um prospektive Aussagen hinsichtlich eines kurzfristigen Preisausblicks zu treffen.
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Notes
The Renewable Energies Act levy (EEG-Umlage in German) is a political instrument to promote the production of energy from renewable sources in Germany. For more information about this levy see ÜNB (2012).
Since 2011 retail companies benefit to a limited extent from the NOME law (“Nouvelle Organisation du Marché de l’Electricité”) which requires the main utility supplier EDF to sell 100 TWh of its production at a fixed rate to competing retail companies (Ministère de l’écologie 2010). This price is not considered in this study.
The CPI is part of the national statistics published by EU Member States.
This does not necessarily mean that the installation of renewable energy sources (RES) increased the electricity price by 16 %, since RES contribute likewise to a reduction in wholesale prices, which is also known as the merit order effect (Sensfuß et al. 2008).
As explained in chap. 2, data on electricity consumption after 2010 were not available at the moment of elaborating this study.
Von der Fehr and Hansen (2010) state that passive consumers not switching their supplier often pay prices far more expensive than the cheapest available rates.
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Matallana-Tost, O., Boßmann, T., Pfluger, B. et al. Which Are The Main Drivers Behind Residential Electricity Prices?. Z Energiewirtsch 38, 101–115 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12398-014-0130-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12398-014-0130-3