Update, September 2026: Spain’s wholesale electricity price closed July 50 percent above July 2025 and kept climbing: August averaged 73 percent above a year earlier and September, to the 29th, 133 percent. The regulated PVPC rose less, about 17, 25 and 36 percent year on year, because part of it is regulated tolls and charges. See what the July 2026 price spike means for your August bill, including the new cheapest-hours window.
The short answer
A Spanish electricity bill has two main charges: potencia, the fixed charge for your contracted power capacity that you pay regardless of usage, and consumo, the kilowatt-hours you actually use, plus taxes (IVA, currently at the standard 21 percent rate). On the regulated PVPC the potencia line is about a fifth to a quarter of a typical Costa apartment’s bill, and many households inherit a higher capacity than they need: dropping from 5.75 kW to 3.45 kW saves about 8 euros per month on the PVPC with taxes, and more on offers with a high power price, for a one-off distributor fee of about 11 euros. The other structural choice is tariff type: the regulated PVPC varies hourly with the wholesale market, while fixed-rate contracts give predictable bills. In 2025 the average free-market offer on the regulator’s comparison site cost clearly more than the PVPC for most of the year, although the average of each supplier’s ten cheapest offers came close to it and dropped below it in months when the PVPC was rising (CNMC, July 2026). Households in Andalucía spent an average of about 76 euros a month on electricity in 2025, according to the national statistics office (INE).
The average Andalusian household spent €909 on electricity in 2025, about €76 a month, according to the national statistics office (INE), and air conditioning pushes summer bills up. Your bill has three main components: potencia — contracted power capacity, consumo — the electricity you actually use, and taxes. Understanding these three things lets you immediately spot whether you’re overpaying and what to do about it.
Last verified: 9 October 2026.
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Who supplies your electricity on the Costa del Sol
Spain’s electricity market is split between the regulated grid (on most of the Costa del Sol, owned and operated by e-distribución, the Endesa group’s distributor) and the competitive retail market where you choose your supplier.
The physical poles, wires, and meter belong to the distributor, whoever you pay your bill to. In most of Andalucía that is e-distribución (legal name EDISTRIBUCIÓN Redes Digitales, called Endesa Distribución until 2019), but a few small local distributors operate too, including three in inland Málaga province, so check the distributor named on your bill. Your commercial supplier (the company you actually have a contract with and pay your bills to) can be anyone: Endesa Clientes, Iberdrola, Naturgy, Octopus Energy Spain, Repsol, Holaluz, or dozens of others.
This distinction matters when something goes wrong. Power cut? Call the distributor, because it owns the infrastructure: e-distribución’s fault line in Andalucía is 900 850 840, and your own distributor’s number is on your bill. Billing dispute? Call your commercial supplier. Many people call the wrong one and waste time.
Your bill, line by line
1. Potencia: the power capacity charge
This is the fixed charge for having electricity connected, regardless of how much you use. It’s based on your potencia contratada, the maximum amount of power your home is contracted to use simultaneously, measured in kilowatts (kW).
The standard steps at today’s 230 V are 2.3, 3.45, 4.6, 5.75, 6.9, 8.05, 9.2 and 10.35 kW (3.3 kW is the old 220 V step). With a smart meter you can contract any value in 0.1 kW steps up to 15 kW (Real Decreto 88/2026), and you can set a different power for the valle period than for punta and llano.
The cost depends on your contract. On the regulated PVPC in 2026 it is about €0.086 per kW per day before tax (about €0.11 with electricity tax and VAT). Fixed-price offers often charge more: the two we checked in September 2026 charged €0.15 to €0.17 before tax. With taxes included, that works out at:
- A 3.45 kW contract: about €11.50 a month on the PVPC, €20 to €23 on those offers
- A 5.75 kW contract: about €19 a month on the PVPC, €33 to €38 on those offers
- A 9.2 kW contract: about €31 a month on the PVPC, €52 to €61 on those offers
Many expats inherit the previous occupant’s power capacity without ever checking it. A studio or small two-bed apartment that doesn’t have electric heating rarely needs more than 3.3–4.6 kW. If you’re paying for 6.9 kW and only ever use a coffee machine, washing machine, and a couple of air conditioning units non-simultaneously, you may be overpaying about €90 to €140 a year on the PVPC (cutting to 4.6 or 3.45 kW), and more on offers with a high power price.
How to check your actual usage peak and whether you can reduce: your contador inteligente — smart meter records maximum demand, and your bill must show the highest power you drew in each period over the last 12 months (look for potencias máximas demandadas). The distributors’ free Datadis platform also shows the peaks with date and time. Set your contracted power above that peak, never below it: if you draw more than your contracted power, the meter cuts the supply. If your peak was 3.5 kW, about 4 kW (possible in 0.1 kW steps with a smart meter) or 4.6 kW is sensible; 3.3 kW would trip. Lowering your power is not quite free: the distributor can charge a regulated fee of €9.04 plus VAT (about €11), passed on through your supplier, and you can normally change the contracted power only once every 12 months, so don’t cut too far.
2. Consumo: what you actually use
This is what you actually used, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). The price per kWh varies enormously depending on your tariff type (explained below) and the range is wide. On the PVPC, about 70% of hours so far in 2026 have cost between €0.10 and €0.35 per kWh before tax, 29% have cost less, and the dearest hours reached €0.43 on September evenings. Tax adds roughly 27% on top.
Under Spain’s standard three-period tariff (2.0TD, which replaced the old 2.0A in June 2021), your usage is charged at three different rates depending on time of day:
| Period | Hours (Peninsula) | Price level on the offers we checked | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Punta — peak | 10:00–14:00 and 18:00–22:00 (Mon–Fri) | Most expensive | Avoid running washing machine/dishwasher here if possible |
| Llano — mid | 08:00–10:00, 14:00–18:00, 22:00–00:00 (Mon–Fri) | Medium price | Acceptable for most usage |
| Valle — off-peak | 00:00–08:00 (all days), plus every hour of Saturday, Sunday, 6 January and the fixed-date national holidays that the regions cannot replace, such as 12 October and 25 December. Regional and local holidays do not count. | Cheapest | If your contract prices valle cheapest, time appliances and car charging for these hours. With solar panels, this applies only to what you draw from the grid: daytime self-consumption, export compensation and a battery all change the comparison. |
That price order comes from the contract, not the regulation. The regulation fixes the hours of each period; your supplier’s contract sets the price in each one. On the two three-period offers we checked in September 2026, from Endesa and TotalEnergies, punta was the dearest period and valle the cheapest, so check your own contract’s schedule and prices before you move anything. The regulated PVPC works differently because its price changes every hour: on the ten weekdays we measured (14 to 18 and 21 to 25 September 2026), the PVPC averaged €0.201 per kWh between midnight and 08:00 and €0.062 between 14:00 and 18:00, before tax. Confirmed September 2026.
Practical implication: on a contract priced by these periods, a washing machine run at 11:00 on a Tuesday falls in punta, and one set on a timer for 02:00 falls in valle. On the two offers we checked, before tax, punta cost 1.97 times valle at Endesa and 2.47 times at TotalEnergies, which makes valle about 49% and 60% cheaper per kWh. What the habit saves you depends on how much of your use can move and on your own contract’s prices. Confirmed September 2026.
3. Electricity tax (impuesto eléctrico)
An excise tax of 5.11269632% (Ley 38/1992, article 99.1), levied on the sum of your potencia and consumo charges. It’s calculated before VAT and shows as a separate line item. A temporary 0.5% rate applied until 31 May 2026 (Real Decreto-ley 7/2026). The decree set an end date of 30 June, but kept the cut for June only if April’s electricity prices were more than 15% higher than a year earlier; they were not, so June went back to the full rate, as Real Decreto-ley 18/2026 records. Real Decreto-ley 18/2026 allowed it again for August and September only if the electricity component of the consumer price index rose more than 15% year on year, and the tax agency (AEAT) confirmed on 1 September that the reduced rate does not apply. The full rate is in force. Real Decreto-ley 25/2026 repeats the test for the rest of the year: November’s rate drops to 0.5% only if September’s electricity prices, as published by INE in October, are more than 15% above a year earlier, and December’s rate depends on October’s figure in the same way. There’s little you can do about this one; it’s a fixed government levy. Confirmed October 2026.
4. Meter rental (alquiler de contador)
A small monthly charge for your smart meter, if you rent it from the distributor: €0.81 a month for a standard single-phase meter (about €9.72 a year before VAT), a rent set by the government. Your supplier collects it on your bill and passes it to the distributor (e-distribución in most of Andalucía), even if your supplier is a different company such as Iberdrola. It appears on your bill regardless of usage.
5. IVA (VAT)
VAT on electricity is 21% in Spain, the standard rate (Ley 37/1992, article 90). A temporary 10% rate applied until 31 May 2026 (Real Decreto-ley 7/2026); June failed the same April price test as the electricity tax cut above, so VAT returned to 21% from 1 June. Real Decreto-ley 18/2026 could have brought it back for August and September, for contracts of up to 10 kW and some bono social households, but only under the same consumer-price test as the electricity tax cut above. The tax agency confirmed on 1 September that the electricity tax cut does not apply, so that test was not met and VAT stayed at 21%. Real Decreto-ley 25/2026 applies the same test to November and December, for contracts of up to 10 kW and the same bono social households. It applies to the total: potencia + consumo + electricity tax + meter rental. So €100 of pre-VAT charges becomes €121 on your bill. Confirmed October 2026.
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PVPC or a fixed tariff: which suits you?
This is the most consequential decision about your electricity bill. See our detailed breakdown in the PVPC vs Fixed Tariff guide, but here’s the short version:
PVPC: the regulated variable tariff
The Precio Voluntario para el Pequeño Consumidor — voluntary price for small consumers, or PVPC, is Spain’s regulated tariff, available only from the eight comercializadoras de referencia — regulated suppliers listed by the CNMC, such as Energía XXI and Curenergía, which are separate companies from the free-market brands. It is open to households and microbusinesses with up to 10 kW. The price per kWh changes hourly, based on wholesale electricity market prices. On a good day (lots of wind, moderate demand), you might pay €0.05/kWh. The dearest hours so far in 2026 came on September evenings, when the price reached €0.43/kWh before tax.
PVPC suits you if:
- You have a smart meter (most homes in Spain now do) and can track hourly prices
- You’re flexible about when you run appliances
- Market prices are generally low (check recent trends)
- You’re willing to use apps like Pvpc+ or your supplier’s app to see tomorrow’s prices
Fixed tariff
A commercial supplier offers you a fixed price per kWh for the duration of your contract (typically 12 months). The price doesn’t change with the market. You pay more in months when the market is cheap; you pay less in months when the market spikes.
Fixed suits you if:
- You value predictability in monthly bills
- You don’t want to think about when to run appliances
- Market prices are currently low and you want to lock them in
- You’re renting the property or have a short time horizon
Wholesale prices were moderate through 2025 and low in the first half of 2026, which helped make the PVPC competitive. Since February 2026 they have risen every month, and September averaged more than double June’s price. The energy market is volatile. If you’re not going to actively manage when you use electricity, a fixed tariff eliminates the risk of a bad month costing you double.
Typical monthly costs on the Costa del Sol
The only official figure is a regional average: households in Andalucía spent €909 on electricity in 2025, about €76 a month, according to the national statistics office (INE) household budget survey. That average covers every kind of home across the region, from inland flats to coastal villas, so your own bill depends mostly on the size of the property, your contracted power and what runs on electricity.
| Property type | What drives the bill |
|---|---|
| Studio / 1-bed apartment | AC in summer is the main driver |
| 2–3 bed apartment | Multiple AC units significantly increase bills |
| Villa (3–4 bed, pool) | Pool pump is a significant ongoing cost; heating the pool adds considerably more |
| Villa with electric heating | Electric heating in coastal villas is expensive; gas or heat pump is more efficient |
The single biggest variable in summer is air conditioning. If you have three or four units in a villa, the costs compound quickly.
Bills like that tend to arrive as a surprise in September. The free weekly WaypointSur Briefing tracks tariff changes and cost traps on the Costa, so the damage shows up in your inbox before it shows up on the bill.
Your CUPS number: find it now
The CUPS, short for Código Universal del Punto de Suministro — universal supply point code, is your electricity supply point’s unique identifier. Think of it as the electricity equivalent of a property’s cadastral reference. It has 20 or 22 characters: ES, a four-digit code for your distributor, 12 digits for the supply point, two check letters and sometimes a two-character suffix. A supply on e-distribución’s network starts ES0031.
You need your CUPS to: switch suppliers, dispute a billing error, apply for solar panel grid connection, or check historical consumption data. It’s on every bill, usually in the contract details section or supply point information box. If you can’t find it, see our guide on how to find your CUPS number.
Write it down. Take a photo of the page. You’ll need it less often than your NIE but more often than you’d expect.
The social tariff: are you eligible?
The bono social — social tariff is a discount on the regulated PVPC for low-income households, on the holder’s main home (up to 10 kW). In 2026 it is 42.5% for vulnerable households and 57.5% for severely vulnerable ones, applied to the PVPC charges with the energy part capped at a set amount of consumption, rather than to the whole bill. Eligibility depends on household circumstances (income, family size, disability, pensioner status). You can only apply through one of the eight regulated suppliers (comercializadoras de referencia), so a household on a free-market contract has to switch to the PVPC first. If you’re on a tight income, check whether you qualify: thousands of eligible households don’t claim it because they don’t know it exists.
How to dispute a bill or report an error
Billing errors do happen: estimated readings that weren’t corrected, incorrect tariff applied, charges for a property you don’t occupy. The process:
- Contact your commercial supplier first, in writing if you can (or the distributor for meter or network faults). Give them the CUPS number and the specific discrepancy. Keep a record of the date and what was said. The supplier must reply within 15 working days.
- If unresolved: take it to your town hall’s consumer office (OMIC, Oficina Municipal de Información al Consumidor), the Junta de Andalucía’s provincial consumer service, or the Junta Arbitral de Consumo (arbitration needs the company’s agreement and ends in a binding award within six months). The CNMC (cnmc.es), Spain’s energy regulator, does not resolve individual complaints.
- For Andalucía specifically: disputes over PVPC billing, meters and supply cuts can also go to the Junta de Andalucía’s provincial energy office (Delegación Territorial). Most Ayuntamientos on the Costa del Sol have an OMIC.
Don’t just pay a bill that seems wrong and move on. Suppliers do make mistakes, and the complaints process works, though it can be slow.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my Spanish electricity bill so high in summer?
Air conditioning. Running multiple AC units throughout the day and night is the biggest driver of high summer bills. The second factor is timing, and it depends on your contract. On a contract priced by the three periods, weekday punta runs 10:00–14:00 and 18:00–22:00, while 14:00–18:00 is llano, so check your own contract’s prices before you move anything. Where punta is your dearest period, pre-cool before 10:00 rather than at midday (08:00–10:00 is llano), unless solar panels cover the midday cooling. On the PVPC, the hot afternoon was the cheapest part of the day on the weekdays we measured in September 2026: 14:00–18:00 averaged €0.062 per kWh before tax, against €0.331 for 18:00–22:00. Keeping windows closed during the day helps on any contract. Also check your contracted power: if you’ve never lowered it from what the previous occupant had, you may be paying for capacity you don’t need.
Should I stay on PVPC or switch to a fixed tariff in 2026?
The right answer depends on current market conditions and your flexibility. PVPC works well when wholesale prices are stable or low, and when you’re willing to shift usage into each day’s cheapest hours, which move with the market (mid-afternoon on the weekdays we measured in September 2026). Fixed tariffs provide predictability at the cost of potentially paying more when markets are cheap. In 2025 the average free-market offer on the regulator’s comparison site cost clearly more than the PVPC for most of the year, although the average of each supplier’s ten cheapest offers came close to it and dropped below it in months when the PVPC was rising (CNMC, July 2026). So whether the PVPC comes out cheaper over a year depends on the market and on how well you can shift your use. If you just want a consistent bill without thinking about it, a competitive fixed tariff from a supplier like Octopus Energy Spain, Repsol, or Holaluz is reasonable. Get quotes and compare the per-kWh price against recent average PVPC rates.
How do I switch electricity suppliers in Spain?
Get your CUPS number from your current bill. Go to the new supplier’s website, enter your CUPS, and choose your tariff. The new supplier handles the switch administratively, and your old contract ends automatically, so you don’t cancel it yourself. The switch must be completed within 10 working days of signing (15 in exceptional cases), there’s no interruption to your electricity supply, and there’s no switching fee on the standard 2.0TD tariff. You can leave at any time without penalty, except on a fixed-price contract before its first annual renewal, where any penalty is capped at 5% of the estimated energy still to be supplied and the supplier must prove its loss. Check your current contract before switching.
What is potencia contratada and how do I know if I have the right amount?
It’s the maximum simultaneous power draw your home is contracted for, in kilowatts. Too low and your circuit breaker (ICP) trips when you run multiple appliances at once. Too high and you’re paying a fixed monthly fee for capacity you never use. Most two-bed apartments manage fine on 3.3–4.6 kW unless they have electric heating. Three-bed apartments with multiple AC units typically need 5.75–6.9 kW. To check if you have the right amount: find the maximum power you drew in each period over the past 12 months on your bill or on Datadis, and compare it to your contracted amount. Reducing potencia costs a regulated fee of about €11 including VAT and is normally allowed once every 12 months. Increasing it costs more (about €66 to €114 including VAT to go from 3.45 to 5.75 kW), and if your installation certificate (boletín) doesn’t cover the new power, or the contract is over 20 years old and fails the distributor’s check, you’ll need an authorised electrician to issue a new one.
How do I set up electricity in a new home in Spain?
You need three things: an ID document, a bank account for direct debit (under EU SEPA rules it can be in any EU country), and the property’s CUPS number. Contact any commercial supplier (Endesa Clientes, Iberdrola, Holaluz, etc.) and tell them you want to open a new supply contract. If the previous contract is still active (the previous owner or tenant), the supplier can often do an immediate name change. If the supply has been disconnected, reconnection takes 1–5 days and may require a technician visit. If you’re in a new build, you’ll also need the electrical installation certificate (boletín eléctrico) from the building’s electrician before the distributor will connect you.
The five-minute version
- A Spanish electricity bill has two main charges: potencia, the fixed charge for contracted capacity, and consumo, what you use, plus electricity tax, meter rental and VAT.
- Check your contracted power against the peak on your bill or on Datadis. Dropping from 5.75 kW to 3.45 kW saves about €8 a month on the PVPC with taxes, for a one-off fee of about €11.
- On a three-period contract, the contract sets which period is dearest. On the PVPC, the cheapest weekday hours we measured in September 2026 were mid-afternoon, not overnight.
- VAT is 21% and the electricity tax 5.11269632%. The temporary cuts last applied in May 2026; cuts in November and December happen only if electricity prices are more than 15% above a year earlier.
- Find your CUPS number on any bill now. You need it to switch supplier or dispute a bill.
- Power cut: call the distributor. Billing problem: write to your supplier, and take it to the OMIC if it is not fixed.
Related guides
- Electricity Contract Check
- PVPC vs Fixed Electricity Tariffs in Spain: Which Costs Less?
- Switch Electricity Provider in Spain: CUPS, Timelines and Tariff Traps
- CUPS Number Spain: How to Find Yours in 5 Minutes
- Electricity in Spain: Complete Guide for Expats (2026)
General information, not legal advice, current as of 9 October 2026. Primary sources: Ley 38/1992, article 99.1 (electricity tax); Ley 37/1992, article 90 (VAT); Reales Decretos-leyes 7/2026, 18/2026 and 25/2026 (temporary tax cuts and their price tests, BOE, checked 9 October 2026); Real Decreto 88/2026 (contracted power steps); the CNMC’s supplier comparison data (July 2026); and INE’s household budget survey for 2025. Figures marked “Confirmed September 2026” come from the offers and PVPC hours we checked that month.
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