Differences in the Structure of Household Electricity Prices in EU Countries

Private households are an important group of energy consumers. Based on Eurostat data, their energy consumption constituted 30% of the final consumption of energy use across the European Union in 2021. The cost of energy is one of the main components of household budgets; thus, the prices provided b...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energies (Basel) 2023-09, Vol.16 (18), p.6636
Main Authors: Matuszewska-Janica, Aleksandra, Żebrowska-Suchodolska, Dorota, Zalewska, Mariola E., Ala-Karvia, Urszula, Hozer-Koćmiel, Marta
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alternative energy sources
classification
COVID-19
electricity prices
Emission standards
Energy consumption
Energy policy
Energy prices
Environmental policy
EU countries
Family income
Households
k-means
Pandemics
Personal income
Prices and rates
Renewable resources
structure of electricity prices
Supply & demand
Sustainable development
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Private households are an important group of energy consumers. Based on Eurostat data, their energy consumption constituted 30% of the final consumption of energy use across the European Union in 2021. The cost of energy is one of the main components of household budgets; thus, the prices provided by energy carriers have a significant impact on energy consumption. The price offered to the final consumer consists of three components: the price of energy and its supply, network costs, and taxes and levies. The values of the three components, however, depend on several factors, among which the structure of the energy markets and energy policies in individual EU countries play a key role. This work aimed to analyze and assess the structure of electricity prices offered to households across EU countries in the years 2019–2021. The differences and similarities between the pricing policies of selected products in the EU and their impacts on households’ purchasing capacity were captured and a non-pattern classification method (k-means) was applied as a research tool. The results indicated that the heterogeneity of the electricity price structure increased significantly over the period analyzed. This may be a consequence of the use of strongly differentiated tools to mitigate electricity price increases and the steps being taken towards low-carbon economies.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en16186636