The January 2026 slope has come with a moderate surprise for millions of homes: the electricity bill is lower than last year, despite the fact that the structural costs of the electrical system have risen sharply. Behind this partial relief there is a significant change that marks a before and after in the regulated tariff: the Voluntary Price for Small Consumers (PVPC) has entered its final phase.
After the energy crisis of 2022 and the blackout of April 2025, the Spanish electricity system seeks stability. The result is a less volatile, more predictable, but also more rigid rate. The underlying question is whether this new PVPC protects the consumer or prevents them from taking full advantage of the drop in prices when energy is abundant.
A respite on the January slope. For an average household, the start of the year is being less suffocating than expected. According to the simulator of the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), an average consumer will pay about 9% less than in the same period last year. As detailed The Information, The monthly bill is around 52.50 euros, compared to 56.40 euros in January 2025.
This decline is not minor if we take into account that two winds are blowing against us. On the one hand, regulated costs have increased—tolls and charges—which represent between 35% and 45% of the bill. On the other hand, the “reinforced operation” of the electrical system is maintained after the blackout, which forces the use of more expensive gas plants more frequently to guarantee the stability of the network. Even so, the receipt goes down. The key is in the reform of the PVPC.
The metamorphosis of PVPC. What the consumer sees on their bill today is the result of a transformation that began in 2023. For more than a decade, the PVPC was almost entirely linked to the daily wholesale market, the so-called poolwhere the price is set every 15 minutes. This design made it possible to take advantage of specific drops, but also exposed households to extreme increases during the gas crisis, with prices that in 2022 exceeded 200 euros per megawatt hour on average.
To reduce this vulnerability, the Government designed a three-year transition that ended on January 1, 2026. Since then, the PVPC energy price has been calculated with a stable distribution: 45% depends on the daily and intraday market and the remaining 55% on the futures markets—annual, quarterly and monthly. As explained The Conversationthe objective is not to always make the bill cheaper, but to prevent it from behaving like a roller coaster again.
This greater stability comes at a cost. The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) remembers that in 2024 the new formula made the bill 5.2% more expensive compared to what would have been paid with the old system. In 2025, with calmer prices, its impact was almost neutral. In 2026, the model is already definitive.
The abundance that does not reach the pocket. The new PVPC coincides with a paradoxical moment. During Christmas 2025, Spain and much of Europe experienced some of the lowest electricity prices in recent years, thanks to records of wind and solar production. However, many consumers hardly noticed this drop in their bill. The reason is structural since more than half of the PVPC price is linked to futures contracted months in advance, sudden falls in the daily market are only partially transferred to the receipt.
This effect is accentuated in moments of curtailmentwhen renewable energy is wasted because the grid cannot absorb it. In Spain, this problem has tripled due to the lack of investment in infrastructure, with especially stressed areas such as Asturias. The result is a contradictory situation: clean and cheap energy at source, but limited by saturated networks and a system that prioritizes stability over extreme savings.
What the consumer can do. As he emphasizes The Conversationthe PVPC does not eliminate the user’s decision-making capacity, but it displaces it. The price of energy is no longer the only relevant factor. The bill is made up of several terms and only two are really manageable: the contracted power and the hourly distribution of consumption. In 2025, the power term represented around 20% of the average bill, and the energy bill, 56%.
Adjusting the real power needed and taking advantage of off-peak hours—early mornings, weekends and solar periods—remains key to containing spending. The difference is that extreme micro-optimization, based on monitoring the market every hour, loses weight in the new system.
So, is it worth staying? The PVPC maintains clear advantages because it remains the only way to access the social bonus and offers total transparency, with prices supervised by the Administration and acts as a cushion against sudden increases in gas in a context of geopolitical uncertainty.
But it also loses appeal for very active profiles. Those who adapted their consumption to the cent can no longer fully benefit from the hours of almost free electricity that occur in spring or autumn with high renewable production.
The free market, for its part, offers fixed rates that provide certainty, but are not free of risks. The OCU warns of automatic revisions linked to the CPI – 3% year-on-year in November – that can make the bill more expensive even for regulated concepts. Comparing carefully is essential.
Shadows on the horizon. Beyond the individual consumer, the electrical system faces a fundamental risk. The Government has calculated the 2026 charges assuming that electricity demand will grow by 4.5%. However, the CNMC has much more cautious forecasts, around 2.3%. If consumption does not grow enough, income will not be enough to cover regulated costs and premiums for historical renewables.
It’s not a bargain hunter’s fare. The PVPC of 2026 will be more stable, more predictable and safer, but also less spectacular at times of minimum prices. The energy transition has managed to generate clean and abundant electricity, but the consumer continues to pay for obsolete networks, increasing fixed costs and a system designed to avoid blackouts rather than to squeeze savings.
The light no longer shoots like before. He doesn’t give anything away either. Understanding the bill, and choosing well where to hire, has become an economic decision that is as relevant as it is inevitable.
Image | Freepik 1 and 2
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