Wholesale Electricity in Portugal Is Having Its Third-Dearest Autumn on Record, at More Than Twice Last Year's Price

Electricity on the Iberian wholesale market has cost more since 1 September than in any autumn except 2021 and 2022, according to calculations by the Spanish news agency EFE reported by ECO on Saturday. EFE puts the market average this autumn at 147.6 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh).

Our own reading of the daily prices published by OMIE, the operator of the Iberian electricity market, gives a Portuguese average of 147.97 euros/MWh from 1 September to 10 October. Over the same days of 2025 the average was 65.12 euros, and in 2024 it was 70.92 euros. This autumn's price is more than double both.

Only the energy crisis years were dearer. EFE's figures for the same period are 168.1 euros/MWh in 2021, when demand rebounded after the pandemic, and 238.2 euros in 2022, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That was the year Portugal and Spain capped the price of gas used to generate power, under a mechanism Brussels authorised for the peninsula.

Above 200 euros for the first time since 2022

On Tuesday 6 October, the day-ahead price for Portugal averaged 206.68 euros/MWh, and reached 300 euros for an hour that evening. According to EFE, it was the first time the market had gone above 200 euros since 2022.

The price can fall just as fast. It averaged 106.90 euros on Thursday and 108.84 euros on Friday, with 21 and 14 quarter-hours respectively priced at zero or below, and it was set at 130.82 euros for Saturday.

Why prices are high

EFE links the rise to greater use of gas-fired power stations, with European gas still above 70 euros/MWh. Supplies are constrained by restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz linked to the war in Iran, and Europe ended September with gas storage 71.54 percent full, almost 11 points lower than a year earlier.

Renewables are also contributing less. Daily data from Red Eléctrica, the Spanish grid operator, show renewables supplying about 50 percent of the peninsula's electricity so far in October, against 53 percent on the same days of 2025 and 59 percent in 2024. Nuclear power has been the largest single source, at 22.7 percent.

Autumn normally brings some relief, as demand for air conditioning falls and the wind picks up. This year that relief may be slow to arrive: the national weather service, IPMA, expects an October heatwave across much of the mainland next week.

What it means for your bill

How much of this reaches a household depends on the contract. Tariffs indexed to the wholesale market, whose energy price follows OMIE's daily price, pass the rise on almost at once. On a fixed-price contract, the effect comes only if and when the supplier revises its prices. The wholesale price is also only one part of a bill, which includes network charges and taxes.

Energy is already the main pressure on prices in Portugal. INE's flash estimate put inflation at 3.6 percent in September, with energy 15.4 percent dearer than a year earlier, and regulated gas went up 6.4 percent on 1 October. Portugal also imported a record nine terawatt-hours from Spain from January to September, a reminder that the two countries share one market and, almost always, one price.

Our guide to setting up electricity in Portugal explains how supply contracts and the social tariff work.