Middle East war sends Spain's electricity prices 700 per cent higher in March
Behind this escalation, which especially impacts customers with regulated tariffs, is the price of gas, which has risen by nearly 70 per cent since the conflict began
The war in the Middle East is already having an impact on electricity bills in Spain. Despite the succession of storms that relentlessly hit the country for several weeks between January and the first half of February, leading to record hydroelectric generation that helped lower the regulated part of the bill, there has been an increase of 700 per cent in the wholesale price in just one week.
The price has gone from an average of 15 euros/MWh on 1 March to 119.42 euros/MWh on 9 March. This mainly affects eight million households that are on this regulated tariff.
Behind this escalation is the price of gas, which has risen by nearly 70 per cent since the conflict began. It has once again become a major factor after the increased presence of wind and hydropower in the energy mix in March displaced the combined cycle plants to 12.6 per cent (the lowest since April last year).
The price per megawatt hour (MWh) closed January at 71.78 euros on average, the lowest for the month since 2023, according to Iberian market Omie. However, the price of electricity on the wholesale market fell in February by nearly 80 per cent compared to January and by 85 per cent compared to the same month in 2025.
All in all, the war threatens to break an otherwise positive trend, with a meteorological cocktail of rain but more daylight hours and, above all, less demand. According to Kelisto.es's energy spokesperson Javier Martínez, the Strait of Hormuz could increase bills by up to 50 per cent.
Calculations by Kelisto.es and the Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) state that the price of natural gas on the Dutch TTF market (the benchmark for Europe) would rise to 90 euros per MWh during a 15-day closure of the passage.
This possible 50 per cent increase in the cost of energy in the regulated tariff would increase the price per kWh from the 0.125 euros in February to 0.187 euros, with an average bill rising from 47 euros per month to 64 euros.
Martínez maintains that this increase will not be as shocking as the one in 2022, "thanks to the new design of the regulated tariff, which uses both the daily price of the wholesale electricity market (very volatile) and the more stable futures market for its calculations".
To the price of electricity must be added the fixed part of the bill, which must be paid even if the electricity bill is zero. This portion has increased slightly since 1 January. It includes network access charges (what you pay for access to the electricity grid), but also other charges such as adjustment services (the price paid for adjusting energy prices in the market).
These services include what are known in industry jargon as "technical restrictions" and this is precisely the part of the bill that has increased the most in recent months due to the blackout protection measures implemented by Red Eléctrica (the Spanish electricity grid operator).
