Price of electricity in Denmark highest so far this year

Data from the national electricity stock exchange, Nord Pool, show a price of at least 6 kroner per kilowatt hour between 7pm and 8pm on Monday, including taxes.

In 2022, when the country experienced an “energy crisis” of soaring gas and electricity rates, the peak price for electricity reached over 8 kroner per kilowatt hour, in August of last year.

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The price of electricity fell to around 3.5 kroner per kilowatt hour in March, before the cost of electricity began to rise again during the summer. That came after a temporary reduction of electricity tax, put in place by the government on January 1st, expired at the end of June.

It is not tax but the weather that is responsible for Monday’s high price, according to analyst Kristian Rune Poulsen of sector organisation Green Power Denmark.

“We have an energy system where you typically look at the weather when there are large swings [in price],” Poulsen said.

“The sharp spike in prices on Monday are due to things like the sun no beginning to go down earlier in the day. We also have a day where there’s not much wind,” he said.

That means Denmark must look to other, more expensive energy sources than wind and solar, which are typically responsible for a large proportion of the country’s consumption.

Large changes in the price of energy are not new but have become more frequent, Poulsen said.

“We have had and are essentially still in an energy crisis that has made fossil fuel energy very expensive. And that’s the energy we need when solar and wind can’t supply the goods. It makes the expensive hours more expensive,” he said.