Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one.

The current total electricity price offered by the electricity supplier is typically made up of the electricity market price (MIBEL, the Iberian Electricity Market), electricity supplier margin and additional consumption based costs and taxes.

For electricity produced by a solar PV system Bright Sunday charges a real term “flat” cost per kWh (adjusted annually by the higher of 0% and the inflation) over a contract term of 10-20 years. Relative to the price offered by the electricity supplier, Bright Sunday offers a significant discount from day one. Electricity from the solar PV system not consumed can be sold to an electricity supplier at the market price with an administrative fee of approximately 5 €/MWh and the revenue will be collected by the customer.

Consequently, the Bright Sunday pricing will become increasingly attractive over time if electricity market prices rise faster than inflation. This document is intended to serve as a guide to help evaluate the Bright Sunday pricing model.

Inflation

Inflation last ten years, 2011-2020, averaged 1.57% in Spain and 1.16% in Portugal. Inflation 2020 was negative in both Spain and Portugal, largely caused by the Corona pandemic. In January 2021 Statista forecasted inflation in 2025 to be 1.69% in Spain and 1.52% in Portugal. Even if inflation over time would reach the ECB target inflation rate of 2% the average over the coming 15 years will most likely be lower.

Inflation can be expected to average 1-2% 2020-2035.

Electricity prices

In the past years the price differences of the MIBEL day-ahead prices for Spain and Portugal have been negligible. In this document, for reasons of simplicity, the same is also assumed to be true going forward. During 2020 electricity prices were volatile and on average significantly lower than in 2019:

  • 2019: 48 €/MWh
  • 2020: 34 €/MWh

The price drop 2020 broke the upwards trend and was a direct result of lower demand caused by the Corona pandemic. However, since May 2020 prices have been rising and in Q4 they were back to more normal and expected levels (40-60 €/kWh). Early January 2021 the day-ahead prices were high (40-100 €/MWh) and the 12 month future contracts that were traded were priced at approximately 48 €/MWh.

Taking the long view, energy demand in Spain and Portugal is forecasted to grow significantly in coming decades, despite improvements in energy efficiency. On an EU-28 level, demand for electricity will rise by around 17 percent by 2050. The demand increase is largely driven by population growth, general electrification of society and by electrification of transportation and industrial processes.

Capacity increases of low cost renewables, such as wind and solar, take very long time to implement. As demand will grow faster than the renewable production capacity expansion, the general expectation is that electricity market prices will increase significantly 2020-2040 and thereafter stagnate and even fall slightly (due to high production from wind and solar).

Energy analyst firm Energy Brainpool forecasts average EU electricity market prices to reach approximately 75 €/MWh by 2035. Looking at historical data the prices at the MIBEL market have be in the mid-high range compared to the EU average. With a 2020 base value of 34 €/MWh the compound annual growth rate the coming 15 years will exceed 5%. Energy analysts firm Aurora also predicts the MIBEL prices to rise more than 5% the coming 10 years.

Looking beyond yearly average prices, in the future market prices can be expected to fluctuate more on a day-to-day basis and be impacted by seasonality – lower prices summertime due to large share of cheap electricity from solar PV and higher in winter due to increased demand and less electricity from solar PV.

Electricity prices can be expected to rise up to 5% per year 2020-2035

Photo by Matthew Henry

Sources:

  • “HICP – inflation rate”, Eurostat.
  • Energy Brainpool: EU Energy Outlook 2050 – How will Europe evolve over the next 30 years?
  • https://aleasoft.com/cold-snap-fall-wind-energy-production-make-electricity-markets-prices-soar/
  • Aurora Iberian Power Market Forecast, April 2020.
  • The estimated price increase excludes, potentially even faster rising, taxes and consumption based costs (Spain “Recargo por excesos de potencia” and Portugal “Potencia Horas Ponta”).