Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union

E5: Energy

L-2920 Luxembourg

European statistics on electricity prices for household and final non-household customers.

Internal Eurostat classification system based on annual electricity consumption bands and tax levels.

Household sector and final non-household sector (industry, services, offices, agriculture, etc).

The prices are reported in national currencies per kWh and according to different bands of consumption.

For the household sector, these bands are:

• DA: customers consuming less than 1000 kWh.
• DB: customers consuming 1000 kWh or more but less than 2500 kWh.
• DC: customers consuming 2500 kWh or more but less than 5000 kWh.
• DD: customers consuming 5000 kWh or more but less than 15000 kWh.
• DE: customers consuming 15000 kWh or more.

For the final non-household sector, the bands are:

• IA: customers consuming less than 20 MWh.
• IB: customers consuming 20 MWh or more but less than 500 MWh.
• IC: customers consuming 500 MWh or more but less than 2000 MWh.
• ID: customers consuming 2000 MWh or more but less than 20000 MWh.
• IE: customers consuming 20000 MWh or more but less than 70000 MWh.
• IF: customers consuming 70000 MWh or more but less than 150000 MWh.
• IG: customers consuming 150000 MWh or more.

There exist 2 different levels of disagregation for semestrial and annual prices:

1- Semestrial prices:

These prices are reported twice a year and are divided in 3 levels:

• Level 1 prices: prices excluding taxes and levies.
• Level 2 prices: prices excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies.
• Level 3 prices: prices including all taxes and levies.

2- Annual prices:

These prices are reported once a year together with the data for the second semester and are divided into the following components and taxes:

• Energy and supply: generation, aggregation, balancing energy, supplied energy costs, customer services, after-sales management and other supply costs.
• Network cost: transmission and distribution tariffs, transmission and distribution losses, network costs, after-sale service costs, system service costs, and meter rental and metering costs.
• Value added taxes (VAT): as defined in Council Directive 2006/112/EC.
• Renewable taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the promotion of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and CHP generation.
• Capacity taxes: Taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to capacity payments, energy security and generation adequacy; taxes on coal industry restructuring; taxes on electricity distribution; stranded costs and levies on financing energy regulatory authorities or market and system operators.
• Environmental taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to air quality and for other environmental purposes; taxes on emissions of CO₂ or other greenhouse gases. This component includes the excise duties.
• Nuclear taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the nuclear sector, including nuclear decommissioning, inspections and fees for nuclear installations.
• All other taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges not covered by any of the previous five categories: support for district heating; local or regional fiscal charges; island compensation; concession fees relating to licences and fees for the occupation of land and public or private property by networks or other devices.

In addition to these elements, the network cost is split into the respective shares of transmission and distribution. The relative share of consumption in the different consumption bands is reported by the countries and used to calculated the single national electricity prices (weighted averages for consumer bands IA-IG and DA-DE).

Some of the taxes are refundable, as defined in the national metadata. 

Since reference period 2021 semester 2, countries report subsidies and allowances to alleviate the increased energy costs. Detailed description is available in the national metadata. 

Household and final non-household consumers divided into consumption bands.

Member States must ensure that a representative share of the national market is covered by the survey.

Electricity prices are presented at national level for EU Member States, EFTA and candidate countries.

The first full set of price data that was collected with the new methodology is available from the second semester 2007 onwards.

Not applicable

Prices are reported in national currency per kWh. However, Eurostat also calculates and publishes the prices in EURO and PPS (purchasing power parity).
Relative shares of sub-component of the network component and consumption volumes are reported in percentages.

For semestrial prices, the reference periods are from January to June for semester 1 and from July to December for semester 2. For annual prices, the reference period is the whole calendar year (from January to December).

At EU level:

• Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices and repealing Directive 2008/92/EC (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2169 of 21 November 2017 concerning the format and arrangements for the transmission of European Statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1734 of 14 November 2018 granting derogations to the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Spain, the Italian Republic and the Republic of Cyprus as regards the provision of statistics pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document C(2018) 7465) (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/XXXX (in progress) concerning the content of quality reports on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).

At national level:

• Refer to national metadata

Eurostat does not share the data collected with other organisation apart from its usual dissemination channel (Eurostat's database, Statistics Explained articles and press or news releases).

At EU level:

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

At national level:

• Refer to national metadata

Published data should not allow the identification of single consumers.

The precise date of data release is disseminated on Eurostat's website (select language and release calendar).

Link to the release calendar: Release calendar - Eurostat (europa.eu).

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

semestrial

Electricity prices for the household sector are announced semestrially end-April and end-October for the previous reference period.

Data is disseminated in the form of a Statistics Explained article every 6 months. The full scope of all prices for all consumption bands is available in Eurobase.

Please consult the data on-line

Not available

No micro data is collected or available for dissemination.

not applicable

not applicable

The methodology for Prices collection is available at: Prices - Energy - Eurostat (europa.eu)

100%

Quality reporting is available at: Prices - Energy - Eurostat (europa.eu)

Pursuant to Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2016/1952, "Every three years, Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with a standard quality report on the data in accordance with the quality criteria laid down in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. Those reports shall include information on the scope and collection of the data, the calculation criteria, the methodology and data sources used, and any changes thereto."

As the methodology for the data collection of the electricity prices is well defined, the data set provides price information that is comparable between countries.

However, users should be aware, that whenever electricity prices in Euro for non-Euro countries are compared in time, the effects of differences in exchange rates are also taken into account. Whenever prices are calculated and/or presented in Euro, the average exchange rates of the 2 quarters of the appropriate semester are taken as a reference.

Electricity prices are of vital importance for the society and the economy. Prices for households affect quality of life. At the same time, prices for non-households have a significant impact on production costs and also affect energy efficiency. 

The main users of energy price data are other units within Eurostat, other Directorates General of the European Commission [DG ENER, DG MOVE, DG COMP, DG ECFIN, DG TAXUD etc.], other European Institutions [European Parliament] and Agencies [European Environment Agency, the Energy Community Secretariat], international organisations [the International Energy Agency – IEA, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries –OPEC, etc.], national authorities, businesses, professional associations [Eurogas, Eurelectric, etc.], news agencies [Reuters, Bloomberg], researchers/academics and other users.

Eurostat user satisfaction surveys cover the energy domain.

Pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 reporting countries provide to Eurostat the complete dataset. 

100%

The published prices are based on real invoiced prices that are paid by end-users

The published disaggregated prices are based on real invoiced prices that are paid by end-users. 

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Price data are delivered to Eurostat 3 months after the reference period or earlier.

Not applicable

Not applicable

For the reference periods 2019, 2020 and 2021, semester 1 and 2, Eurostat received 1647 data transmissions. 

84.8% of the first transmissions were submitted on time. 90.7% of the first transmissions were submitted in one week after the legal deadline. 

Pursuant to Article 8 of Regulation (EU) 2016/1952, "The Commission (Eurostat) shall disseminate natural gas and electricity price statistics no later than five months after the end of each reference period."

Eurostat disseminates the data one month before the legal deadline. 

Good comparability as a unique methodology is in place that describes the collection of gas and electricity prices.

Not applicable

From 2017 first semester onwards, prices are reported according to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952. 

From 2007 second semester onwards, prices are reported with a new methodology as defined in Commission Decision 2007/394/EC.

For prices that were collected before this time a different methodology was in place. Comparing the new methodology prices with old methodology prices is possible, but the reader should be aware, that not only standard reference consumers were replaced with standard bands, but also that the data collection with the new methodology is done on real price data while the old methodology was often performed on tariff price data.

Please refer to national metadata. 

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not available at European level. For the cost and burden at national level, please refer to the relevant metadata. 

In case only provisional national price data is available, this data is marked with a "p" (provisional). This provisional data is used for calculating (provisional) EU aggregates. As soon as definitive data is available, both the final national data as well as final corrected aggregated data are introduced.

The revision practice effectively corresponds to the revision practice of the domain, as listed under sub‑concept 17.1 (data revision – policy).

Reported errors are assessed for seriousness to determine whether they should trigger a correction of already disseminated data. When relevant, reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated.

Data may be published even if they are missing for certain countries or flagged as provisional or of low reliability for certain countries. They are replaced with final data once transmitted and validated. European aggregates are updated for consistency with new country data. Whenever new data are provided and validated, the already disseminated data are updated either right away or with the next regular production cycle, depending on the impact of the change.  

Time series breaks caused by major revisions are flagged. Whenever feasible, back-calculation is applied to provide break-free data.

Major revisions are pre-announced using the revision pre-announcement form. They are also documented in the validation exchanges with countries (available in Ares). In addition, major revisions (those with a visible impact on policy indicators) and their impact are analysed by asking countries for more information and by reflecting on its impact on major policy indicators. They are communicated e.g. via the relevant Statistics Explained article.

Incoming data is validated by Eurostat, by checking the price data on consistency and completeness. In case of abnormal increases or decreases, the reporting organisation will be requested to reconfirm the data. In practice, between 2-5 Member States report price-corrections (per dataset). These corrections might be due to the availability of final data instead of provisional data, or due to corrective measures. The prices are not seasonally adjusted.

not applicable at European level

Electricity price data is reported by National Statistical Institutes, Ministries, Energy Agencies, or or system operators. EU aggregates are calculated by Eurostat by weighting the national prices with the latest available national consumption for households and non-households.

semestrial

Eurostat provides model questionnaires (currently in excel or SDMX-csv format) to all data providers that cover the following areas:

• Electricity prices for households
• Electricity prices for non-households
• Natural gas prices for households
• Natural gas prices for non-households

Price Data for electricity is collected by the reporting authorities of the States from suppliers. This micro data is then aggregated by the reporting authorities to national average prices. Countries ensure that the sample is sufficiently large to ensure that a representative national price is achieved. 

National input data arevalidated by Eurostat for consistency and completeness.

In case of inconsistent price data, the data providers are contacted to request a reconfirmation of the data.

Member states must report national prices that are representative for the whole country.
These national prices will represent weighted average prices, using the market shares of electricity supply undertakings surveyed as weighting factors. 

EU aggregates are calculated by Eurostat, once the price data set is complete.

not applicable at European level

Not applicable

Not applicable.

Exchange rates to convert non-euro prices to euro-prices are taken as the average exchange rate for quarter 1 and 2 (for semester 1 price data) and as the average rate for quarter 3 and 4 (for semester 2 data).