The Government of Andorra (Pyrenees) has approved the modification of electricity tariffs for 2020. These new tariffs incorporate some changes aimed at promoting self-supply, making the rate more accessible for economically disadvantaged people and energy costs optimization by shifting the consumption to the times when it is cheaper. The new rates will be applied from January 1, 2020.
The impact on the average domestic customer will be an increase of 1.7%, thanks to the distribution of the increase in sections that will be applied to favour more moderate consumption. Thus, the average customer’s monthly bill will be increased by around 50 cents. The average increase in business rates is also 1.7%.
With regard to the changes in the structure of the tariffs, the current tariff aimed at people with economic difficulties is particularly affected. Until now, this rate was limited to customers with a contracted power of up to 3.3 kW, therefore families with an electric heating system or with a higher power need were not able to benefit from it. To eliminate this barrier, the modification approved this Wednesday increases the maximum power contracted to 8.8kW, which is a sufficient limit to be able to support an electrical heating system.
At the same time, in order to encourage a partial shift in electricity consumption to the night time, the blue domestic hourly rate, which offers the most advantageous prices in the nighttime consumption, has also been made more accessible.
In this case, it used to be limited to a minimum power of 8.8 kW and has now been downgraded so that customers with a power of 5.5 kW, who are the bulk of domestic customers, can also benefit from it.
The tariff structure has remained the same as in recent years, with 3 types of tariff depending on the contracted power and the energy use. The blue tariffs, for domestic users and small businesses, the red rates applicable to medium size professional or industrial users, and the green rates, for large industrial customers.
There has been a moderate increase of prices which allows to keep rates well below the neighbouring countries (Spain and France) and the rest of the European Union.
