EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics Unit E-5: Energy

ENERGY PRICES EUROSTAT

Workshop on Energy Statistics Energy Community Secretariat Vienna, 29-30 October 2009

European Commission, 5, rue A. Weicker, L-2721 LUXEMBOURG. Phone : (352) 43 01-1. Office: BECH.B2/303 Phone: direct line (352) 43.01 32023, fax: (352) 43.01 -32839 http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/

Introduction

Since 1991, Eurostat has collected price information for natural gas and electricity both for households and for industrial consumers. The data collection for industrial consumers at EU level was based on Council Directive 90/377/EEC about Price Transparency that came into force in 1991. The liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets had affected the data collection of prices, and the applied methodology had become outdated. In 2002, Eurostat introduced the idea of setting up a Task Force that would study possible improvements for data collection and methodology. The outcome of this Task Force was a proposal for a new methodology that was tested in parallel with the data collection in January 2005 The new methodology was adopted in June 2007 and entered into force 1 January 2008.

Present situation

Under the Council Directive (recast) 2008/92/EC for the transparency of gas and electricity prices charged to industrial end-users, data are collected twice every year. The Directive entered into force end of November 2008. The price statistics are used amongst others to monitor the functioning of the liberalised / liberalising energy markets. The regular collection of price statistics serves for this purpose, but also specific actions are carried out to support monitoring the policy on the liberalisation of energy markets. Statistics will be collected and published assessing the effectiveness of competition in electricity and gas markets.

Data collection Eurostat collects average half-yearly electricity and natural gas prices for households and industrial end-users. The end-users are characterised by predefined annual consumption bands. The prices include electricity/gas basic price, transmission, system services, distribution and other services. The prices are collected and published considering three levels of taxation: - prices excluding taxes and levies; - prices excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes; 2

- prices including all taxes, levies and VAT.

Eurostat provides model questionnaires to all data providers that cover the following areas: - Gas prices for the households sector; - Gas prices for the industrial sector; - Electricity prices for the households sector; - Electricity prices for the industrial sector. Member States must ensure that a representative share of the national market is covered by the survey The full set of price data that was collected with a new methodology is available from the second semester 2007 onwards.

Reference consumers for gas and electricity are characterised by the following annual consumption bands:

Electricity households: Da (Very small): annual consumption lower than 1 000 kWh Db (Small): annual consumption between 1 000 and 2 500 kWh Dc (Medium): annual consumption between 2 500 and 5 000 kWh Dd (Large): annual consumption between 5 000 and 15 000 kWh De (Very large): annual consumption above 15000 kWh

Electricity industry: Ia: annual consumption lower than 20 MWh Ib: annual consumption between 20 and 500 MWh Ic: annual consumption between 500 and 2 000 MWh Id: annual consumption between 2 000 and 20 000 MWh Ie: annual consumption between 20 000 and 70 000 MWh If: annual consumption between 70 000 and 150 000 MWh 3

Ig: annual consumption above 150 000 MWh

Natural gas households: D1 (Small): annual consumption lower than 20 GJ D2 (Medium): annual consumption between 20 and 200 GJ D3 (Large): annual consumption above 200 GJ

Natural gas industry: I1: annual consumption lower than 1 000 GJ I2: annual consumption between 1 000 and 10 000 GJ I3: annual consumption between 10 000 and 100 000 GJ I4: annual consumption between 100 000 and 1 000 000 GJ I5: annual consumption between 1 000 000 and 4 000 000 GJ I6: annual consumption above 4 000 000 GJ

The published data are average prices over a period over 6 months. Semester 1 prices are average prices between January and June of each year, semester 2 prices are average prices between July and December of each year.

Unit measure

Electricity prices: Euro / kWh National currency / kWh for non-Euro countries Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) / kWh

Natural gas prices: Euro / GJ (Giga Joule = one Joule x 10exp9) 4

National currency / GJ for non-Euro countries Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) / GJ Competition indicators in the liberalised energy markets The competition indicators for the liberalised gas and electricity market are compiled on the basis of two Eurostat questionnaires. These are the “Questionnaire on indicators to monitor progress of competition in the electricity market” and the ““Questionnaire on indicators to monitor progress of competition in the natural gas market” which are sent once every year to the Member States.

5