The Daily Populous Tuesday July 7th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by ArgentineBeauty

Spanish households save €10 a month on electricity bills because of wind turbines and solar panels installed in the last five years, a report has found.

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’s “strategic” 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.

“We just had a 60% rise in gas prices and electricity bills in Spain basically haven’t reacted – they actually got a bit cheaper in April,” said Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember and the lead author of the report. “That’s a clear and obvious contrast to the previous gas crisis, when electricity bills were climbing immediately.”

Burning fossil gas is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity in Europe, 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.

The report found electricity prices in Spain rose by about 50% in the first half of 2021 – in line with European gas prices – but remained “largely unaffected” 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.

Mar Reguant, an energy economist at Northwestern University, who was not involved in the report but whose research findings painted “the same picture”, said ambitious policy helped Spain make the most of favourable conditions. Compared with the rest of Europe, these include decent wind, “unbeatable solar” and pre-existing pumped hydropower storage.

“There is no question that Spain and Portugal are greatly benefiting from their early transition,” she said. “The Iberian peninsula has a privileged position and has acted smartly.”

Wind and solar generated 33% of Spain’s electricity in 2021. By 2025, the share had risen to 42%.

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

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.

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.

Dr Diego García Gusano, a senior energy planning researcher at Tecnalia, a Basque technology centre, who was not involved in the analysis, said Spain’s 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.

The slow deployment of storage and limited flexibility in electricity demand had “intensified” the situation, he added, preventing the system from efficiently absorbing excess renewable generation.

“Spain is less exposed to gas shocks than other countries, but it is not immune,” Gusano said. “The bet on renewables is very sound, but much more is needed to make that bet structural and not circumstantial.”

Deathdy on July 6th, 2026 at 16:35 UTC »

That's good. But how does this benefit the billionaires? Will anybody think of the shareholders?

Yosyp on July 6th, 2026 at 16:05 UTC »

Here in Italy there's huge anti-green movements that aim to "preserve the beauty of the landscape" by pushing to cancel construction plans. It's truly maddening to see how these people think: they want neither nuclear nor renewable. It's a lost cause. We have amongst the highest electricity bills in the EU.

ArgentineBeauty on July 6th, 2026 at 15:09 UTC »

Gas prices can jump overnight, but wind and sun don't. The more electricity you make with them, the less people get hit when gas prices go wild. That's a huge plus.