How the drought is affecting your electricity bills

The current drought in Spain resulting from the prolonged lack of rainfall is inevitably affecting your electricity bills. Read on to find out how.
The drought that Spain is currently suffering will have consequences for our electricity bills. The year 2021 ended badly, and the start of 2022 has not been much better. Forecasts indicate that February will be dry, with little rainfall to alleviate the situation.
The emptying of the reservoirs is worrying, as they are, as a whole, at 45% of their capacity. Weather conditions and electricity production go hand in hand. The drought, which is emptying reservoirs, causing the desertification of soil and spoiling crops, is also increasing our bills.
Peak electricity costs make the short-term future uncertain.
The less hydropower there is, the more it costs to produce electricity. Without rainfall, the consequence is clear. However, wind power production is also decreasing. Hydropower and wind power are the two most important renewable sources in Spanish electricity production, essential to cover the demand.
These factors, combined with the cold winter temperatures, more time spent working from home and the few hours of daylight, indicate that electricity bills are likely to continue to be particularly high in 2022, at least for the time being.
The Spanish government, led by the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has long been committed to renewable energy. Despite this, renewable energy sources, for the moment, cannot tackle the problem. “Using hydraulic reserves with the reservoirs in this situation is suicide,” argued Ignacio Durán Escribano, professor of Atomic and Nuclear Physics at the University of Santiago. “We will never know how much rain will fall in spring, now that we have just come from an anticyclonic spell and the reservoirs have been emptied,” he added.
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