Comment by supermatt
20 hours ago
I am in Lithuania, which has one of the highest wholesale energy prices in Europe (as per nord pool): https://data.nordpoolgroup.com/auction/day-ahead/prices?deli...
That it is not translating into a higher cost to the consumer (as evidenced on your link) is likely indicative of other costs being incurred by the “average” consumer in those countries with a higher domestic rate - like massive markup from users being tied into inflated contracts due to the 2022 shock where rates across Europe were more than double what they are now.
Also, these are residential prices - business prices are usually much lower (wholesale discounts, subsidies, no VAT, lower delivery charges).
As per my response to the initial comment - there is no way a datacentre in Europe is paying 30c/kWh
Business prices should be figure 6 in my link, while the difference is a lot smaller, Lithuania is definitely one of the cheaper countries, beating the EU average slightly.
> As per my response to the initial comment - there is no way a datacentre in Europe is paying 30c/kWh
Hetzner prices it at 33c/wh as of last year I believe, previously it was 40c (after the pipeline was destroyed)
But Germany is pretty much in the 3 most expensive countries wrt electricity cost in the EU - both for consumers and commercial pricing
> Lithuania is definitely one of the cheaper countries
And yet has one of the highest wholesale rates...
> Hetzner prices it at...
Hertzner are reselling. They make a profit on energy resale. Their rate also includes a substantial buffer on the actual rate to account for volatility. Their rate is most likely less than half of what they are passing on for colo.
For reference, last year German industrial energy prices were around 10c/kWh INCLUDING taxes and network fees - and the government are looking to subsidize that further to target 5c/kWh: https://www.gleisslutz.com/en/know-how/germany-cuts-costs-el...
You're talking about select industries which are being supported via subventions, data centers are not included. If you pay attention to the wording in your cited article, they've said so as well.
And hetzner does not have a large upsell for their energy prices, they're pretty much passing in the price as-is according to their own statements (from the large increase to 40c)
Almost all commercial applications need to pay the quoted prices around what's shown in figure 6
Some countries also employ progressive electricity pricing such that higher energy consumption leads to elevated kWh rates incentivizing conservation. This is also not visible in the stats above. I also think that business kWh rates are actually higher than for the households in some instances.
Yeah, strictly business vs residential isn’t a good comparison either really, as the lower transmission fees for medium (10kV+) and higher voltage are where a lot of the savings are - and obv a lot of business don’t use such power.