When the light is cheaper

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The electricity bill is one of the most hated by the Spanish, and it is not surprising: we have years of continuous increases in the price of electricity. Some media have assured that represents 40% of the income of many households with at least one unemployed member.

And it is that knowing when electricity is cheaper, is no longer a thrifty obsession, but a necessity, regardless of the amount of money that enters your bank account each month, or the amount that you do not enter.

In this post intentaremos ayudarte a descubrir when the light is cheaper, but also to understand why it is so difficult to know, therefore it is so difficult, sometimes, not even the technicians of the different electricity companies know it for sure.

The challenge of understanding the electricity bill

It doesn't matter if you electric power contract You have it with Iberdrola, Endesa or anyone else: understanding the electricity bill is a challenge. So when your bill comes home and you don't understand it, it's not your problem, we all have that problem.

Understanding the electricity bill is key to later understanding how the price is calculated and when electricity is cheapest.

OK lets start.

We suggest you have your invoice and compare or underline the data that we mention to make it much easier for you.

Data of the contract holder, such as name, DNI or NIE address, contract number, invoice number, billing period, etc.

• Rate type of your contract

By the name of the company you will be able to know the type of rate that you have in force in your contract, if it does not tell you later: Voluntary Price for Small Consumer (PVPC) or free market. PVPC is offered by: Hidrocantábrico Energía Último Recurso, Iberdrola Comercialización de Último Recurso SAU, Endesa Energía XXI SLU, Unión Fenosa Metra SL and E.ON Comercializadora de Último Recurso.

You will see a small summary of how your total electric bill was calculated. You will see a small breakdown of how it has been billed, seeing your consumption, the price per kilowatt and other items.

• Electricity consumption report

Now you will see a complete breakdown of your consumption, rates, commissions, contracted services, a consumption history, in which some companies calculate your daily consumption in the form of money. You can compare the consumption of the current exercise with the same of the previous year.

Here you will see all the data of your contract, as an example, to know if you have the fixed rate, by time discrimination, the telephone number of the technical service, or if you already have the 'smart' meter (yes, in quotation marks ), the amount of CUPS to see your consumption on the Internet in real time.

The rest of the data that appears are merely informative, such as the consumption graph, company notices, commercial promotion, or whatever the company deems appropriate.

How your invoice is calculated

You should see, first of all, on your invoice, the contracted power and the type of billing or tariff you have, at the same time as the contracted power, which is the number of kilowatts contracted to your operator, is equal to the megawatts of your mobile data rate, and depends on how many devices you can turn on in your home. The power can be 3300w, 4400w, 5500w or 8000w.

The calculation of the price of your electrical energy is calculated by multiplying:

1. The contracted power (in kW)
2. Period, monthly, bimonthly or daily, it depends on your company
3. Government Canon

The canon is what the government controls to raise or lower the price of the electricity bill, even though companies can also apply offers in this area to make their rates more attractive.

Other than that, a variable rate is paid, which is the payment for the energy consumed, or called energy billed, is calculated by multiplying:

1. The energy consumed in the billing period (kW per hour)
2. Price per kilowatt hour

You will add these two amounts, and you will add rates such as equipment rental, 21% VAT and 5% Electricity Tax.

How is the variable part of the invoice calculated?

In October of last year, the price per kilowatt hour changes, And it no longer works as before, that every quarter an electricity auction was held, and it was the one that was used to calculate the rate, with the previous calculation. Now the kilowatt rate is done in a wholesale market with an hourly price, and only one day in advance, that is, there will be 24 different kilowatt hour rates instead of one.

It affects you? If you have a regulated rate, which was previously called TUR, now PVCP, yes, because you must take into account the price per kilowatt hour. If you are in the free market, no, but you will lose the reference to whether you pay a lot or a little.

To fix, with this new method, the price, an estimate is made of the amount of electricity that will be consumed the next day

A forecast is made of how much electricity will be consumed in each of the hours of the next day. The price is covered in an auction, and the price varies according to the hour, that is, if there is an hour with more consumption, there will be more bids, and its price will be higher than that of an hour with little consumption. , which will be more economical.

For all this is key the 'smart' counter, which measures hourly consumption, but if they do not have it, companies apply a standard consumption profile, and it will not matter what you consume at any time, since it is in the largest number of homes in Spain.

When is the cheapest light?

Having already understood the bill and how electricity is calculated, we have to talk about when electricity is cheapest.

The best way, if you have an hourly rate, is to go to Red Eléctrica de España page, where prices per kilowatt are published daily for the next day, starting at 8:30 pm

Regularly, these are the key times that you should know, even though they vary depending on whether we are talking about a holiday period, or a weekend:

1. The most expensive schedule is from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm
2. The optimal time is 7 to 8 hours.
3. The cheapest hour is 2 to 3 hours.

As an example, at the time of writing this post, the consumption of each of the previous hours is:

1. The most expensive hour costs € 0.11 per kilowatt
2. The optimal hour is priced at € 0.09 kWh.
3. The cheapest hour costs € 0.08 kWh

Thus, you can program the switching on of the appliances that consume the most in your home, such as the washing machine, the ceramic hob, in winter, the heating, or in summer the air conditioning, etc.

Even though at a general level, The morning and night hours are the most expensive., that is, and the cheapest is the first hours of the morning, from two in the morning.

Habrá días en los que la hora más cara be inclusive más del doble de la hora más barata, fundamentalmente en verano e invierno.

If you have the time and patience to schedule your daily consumption, this system is convenient for you, since you will see the consumption of the bill reduced, which, in this circumstance, is no longer bimonthly, but monthly.

The main disadvantage is that you will not be able to know with certainty if the calculation of your invoice is correct or not. It is the same method that we have told you before, but calculated for each hour of each billed period, that is, 1440 calculations in a bimonthly invoice. A real madness that even Excel cannot rid you of.

The best solution: a tariff with hourly discrimination

If you want to save money and forget about planning each schedule in your home, the best solution is a hourly discrimination rate.

It means Divide the day into two hours, that is, peak hours (day) and off-peak hours (night).

Even though it has also changed, the method is almost equivalent to the one before October 2015: the off-peak rate is much lower than the peak-hour rate, and it depends on each company. Regularly the off-peak fare is 50% cheaper than during peak hours.

The off-peak hours are between 11 p.m. and 1 p.m. in summer and between 10 p.m. and 12 noon in winter.

Peak hours are from 1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. in summer and from 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. in winter.

Decidedly, off-peak hours will not always be cheaper than peak hours, but in general, this is the case.

With time discrimination, it eliminates uncertainty, and it is only convenient if your consumption is approximately 30% higher, at least at night than during the day, and that daytime consumption can be controlled to the maximum.

If you can't control consumption, you better stay in it Standard rate, and monitor consumption on a daily basis to understand the best time to turn on the washing machine, air conditioning or heating.

To understand when electricity is cheaper, in short, it is necessary to know what rate you have contracted, what billing method, and check the price per kilowatt hour per day, even though it will always be at dawn.

We hope that, with all this guide, you will have less fear when the next bill for your electricity consumption comes home, and that it will be much lower than in the previous period. If you have any questions, we suggest that you compare with other companies, rates or alternatives for consumption, contrary to what is thought, there are many offers and rates.