Electricity price today, November 12: the most expensive hour will be from 20:00 to 21:00 and the cheapest from 14:00 to 15:00

The electricity price in the Spanish wholesale market is set through a daily auction managed by OMIE, where buy and sell offers for the following day are matched. The system is marginalist: the accepted energy is traded at the clearing price for each period, not at the particular price requested by each producer. Since October 1, 2025, the periods are 15 minutes: usually, 96 daily prices are obtained instead of 24.

1. Submission of offers

Producers indicate how much electricity they want to sell and the minimum price they request. Retailers, direct consumers, and other buyers submit the quantities they wish to acquire and the maximum price they are willing to pay. Offers with additional technical or economic conditions may also exist.

The daily session is held at 12:00 CET for delivery the next day. OMIE receives and validates the offers from participants in Spain and Portugal, as explained in its daily market documentation.

2. European ordering and matching

For each period, sell offers are ordered from lowest to highest price and buy offers from highest to lowest. This constructs the supply and demand curves: it seeks which quantities can be exchanged at compatible prices for buyers and sellers.

This operation is called matching. It is not performed in isolation for Spain: the European algorithm Euphemia jointly calculates the results of coupled markets, considering offers, their conditions, and the available capacity in interconnections. Its goal is to maximize the joint economic surplus of the operations.

If there is sufficient capacity to exchange electricity, different zones can share a price. If an interconnection becomes congested, different prices appear: the cheaper electricity cannot be exported without limit. OMIE describes this integration in its explanation of the electricity market.

3. Determination of the marginal price

The result establishes a price for each zone and quarter-hour. Simplified, it is set by the last offer needed to meet the accepted demand. The matched energy receives that common price, even though certain sellers may have offered to sell cheaper.

Therefore, when it is necessary to resort to gas plants, their offers can determine the period price. But there is no technology that always sets it: it depends on offers, demand, and international exchanges. Renewable abundance usually pressures prices downward; negative prices can also be recorded.

4. Publication and technical verification

OMIE publishes the resulting prices and quantities and communicates to agents their accepted purchases and sales. The obtained economic program serves as a basis to organize production and consumption for the next day.

Then, Red Eléctrica, as system operator, verifies its physical feasibility. It can introduce modifications to resolve network constraints and guarantee security and balance between generation and consumption. Therefore, economic matching and technical operation are distinct functions.

5. Subsequent adjustments and settlement

Agents can correct their positions through three intraday auctions and continuous trading, for example, if wind or demand forecasts change. These operations have their own prices: they do not retroactively replace the daily price for all energy. The CNMC explains these segments and their quarter-hourly evolution.

Finally, OMIE performs the settlement of operations. The wholesale price does not equate to the domestic bill: this includes tolls, charges, taxes, and other costs; moreover, its relation to the daily market depends on the consumer's contract.

The CNMC regulates economic and technical aspects of the electricity market, supervises its companies, and monitors competition. Its function is to ensure transparent, efficient, and non-discriminatory operation for the benefit of consumers. It does not replace the Government in energy policy nor directly manage the electrical system.

Its competencies are mainly based on Article 7 of Law 3/2013 and the Electricity Sector Law. They can be organized into six areas.

1. Tolls and network remuneration

The CNMC establishes the structure and methodology of transport and distribution tolls: the part of the bill that pays for network use. It also approves their values through resolutions published in the BOE.

Additionally, it sets methodologies, parameters, and asset bases to calculate remuneration for transporters and distributors. This includes investment, operation and maintenance values, regulatory useful life, and financial remuneration rate, within legal limits. It also determines the remuneration methodology for the system operator.

2. Network access and market operation

It establishes methodologies and conditions for access and connection, including criteria to evaluate available capacity. Thus, it contributes to generators, storage, and consumers accessing networks with homogeneous criteria, without discrimination, as explained in its resolution on access capacity.

It also regulates aspects of access to international interconnections, capacity allocation, and congestion management. It approves rules for organized markets under the national regulator's remit and methodologies for balancing and non-frequency services, necessary to maintain system balance and stability.

3. Supervision and defense of competition

It monitors wholesale and retail markets, price formation, transparency, and compliance with agents' obligations. It also annually identifies main and dominant operators and supervises that distributors do not discriminate against other participants.

According to the European REMIT regulation, it controls the integrity of the wholesale market against possible manipulation or misuse of insider information. As a competition authority, it investigates restrictive agreements and abuses of dominant position, and examines business concentrations when applicable.

4. Consumers and electricity origin

It supervises the adequacy of prices and supply conditions to regulations and customers' access to their consumption data. It manages an offer comparator and publishes analyses on prices and retail markets.

It also administers guarantees of origin, which certify renewable electricity or high-efficiency cogeneration. This supervision does not mean it resolves individual claims: their processing corresponds to competent administrations depending on the case.

5. Inspection, conflicts, and sanctions

It can request information, inspect matters within its competence, resolve legally attributed energy conflicts, and impose sanctions for infractions within its scope. Additionally, it certifies and controls that the transmission network manager complies with activity unbundling requirements, in coordination with the European Commission.

6. Reports and European cooperation

It issues reports on regulatory projects, planning, installations, and remuneration regimes. It cooperates with other regulators and with ACER, the European agency for cooperation of energy regulators.

The essential distinction: the CNMC sets network tolls, but charges that finance other system costs correspond to the Government and the Ministry. It also does not determine taxes nor the PVPC methodology, the regulated tariff for small consumers. Therefore, it influences the bill but does not decide its final amount alone.

To operate in the regulated electricity market in Spain, a company must obtain the status of reference retailer (COR): it is not enough to be authorized to sell electricity in the free market. It must meet general marketing requirements, access specific designation, and maintain regulated supply and consumer protection obligations.

1. Capacity to market electricity

The company must prove legal, technical, and economic capacity. To request its designation as COR, it must be a commercial company registered in the corresponding registry, or equivalent in its country of origin, with a corporate purpose allowing it to buy and sell electric energy without limitations incompatible with that activity.

Additionally, it must comply with participation conditions in the electrical system, provide required guarantees, and acquire the energy necessary to serve its customers. Starting marketing requires a responsible declaration before the Directorate General for Energy Policy and Mines, as explained by the Ministry for Ecological Transition. These general conditions do not replace designation as COR.

2. Two designation paths

Article 3 of Royal Decree 216/2014 distinguishes two cases:

• Designation by customer volume: retailers that have supplied more than 100,000 customers on average in Spain during the last twelve months, or belong to business groups reaching that threshold. In Ceuta and Melilla, more than 25,000 customers must be exceeded; the obligation may be limited to the corresponding autonomous city.
• Voluntary application: other retailers may request designation for the entire Spanish territory if they meet the following additional requirements. Meeting them does not automatically make the company a COR.

3. Requirements to apply voluntarily

• Minimum share capital of 500,000 euros.
• Three years of prior activity supplying electricity to consumers, continuously maintaining legal, technical, and economic capacity and fulfilling the obligation to acquire energy.
• At least 25,000 customers on average in Spain during the last twelve months.
• Not having been disqualified during the last three years nor sanctioned by a final administrative resolution for serious infractions during the last year or very serious infractions during the last three years, regarding electricity marketing. The restriction also applies to the business group and related companies.
• Not having suffered administrative transfer of its customers by final resolution during the last three years. The regulation also establishes restrictions regarding the group and related companies that have suffered such transfers.

4. Documentation and resolution

The application must be accompanied by proof of compliance with the requirements. Certificates from the system operator and, when applicable, the market operator certifying three years of compliance with technical and economic conditions are necessary, along with corporate documentation.

Designation requires a prior report from the CNMC. The maximum period to resolve is three months; the designation order must be published in the BOE and the company included in the CNMC's COR list.

5. Obligations after designation

The COR must apply the legal PVPC methodology, attend the supplies corresponding to it, and keep separate accounts of income and expenses attributable to that supply. It must also manage and apply the social bonus according to Royal Decree 897/2017 and comply with contracting, billing, and consumer service rules of Royal Decree 88/2026.

Requirements must be maintained during activity. Non-compliance may lead, after hearing, to loss of authorization and customer transfer. Those who access voluntarily must keep COR status for a minimum of four years before being able to abandon it according to the applicable procedure.