When people talk about electricity prices, they often mean very different things. To make the debate more factual, it helps to break the price down into its layers.

The household price: This is the end-customer price including taxes and grid fees. The latter cover the cost of the physical infrastructure and vary regionally, depending on the distribution grid operator. Important: this is not the industrial price, since large consumers are often exempt from many levies.

Line chart of the average household electricity price in Germany from 2016 to 2026; it rises from about 27 ct/kWh to a peak of 43 ct/kWh in 2022 and then falls to about 32 ct/kWh Average household electricity price in ct/kWh, 2016–2026. Source: Verivox.

The supplier layer: This is where the transformation happens. Customers usually want prices that are stable over the long term so they can plan. The supplier manages the risk and smooths out the volatile exchange prices. The downside: the price incentive to consume less when electricity is expensive is often lost for the end customer.

Stacked bar chart of household electricity price components from 2016 to 2025 (energy procurement and sales, grid fees, levies, taxes); the energy procurement share grows strongly after 2021 Composition of household electricity prices since 2016. Source: SMARD.

The power exchange: In day-ahead trading, the merit order rules. The most expensive power plant still needed to cover demand sets the price. Often these are gas-fired plants (including emission costs). On very sunny or windy days, renewables push the price down, sometimes into negative territory.

Bar chart of the volume-weighted day-ahead spot price from 2006 to 2025; prices spike to 230 €/MWh in 2022 and stay at 78 to 92 €/MWh afterwards Volume-weighted day-ahead spot price (not inflation-adjusted). Source: Fraunhofer ISE (Energy-Charts).

Charts of negative day-ahead prices: the number of negative-price hours per year rises sharply to 575 hours in 2025, next to the distribution of the negative prices Hours with negative day-ahead prices per year and the average negative price. Source: Fraunhofer ISE, L. Gandhi; data: EPEX.

The solar market value (capture price): As an operator, you do not earn the average exchange price. Since all solar plants feed in at the same time, they correlate with an oversupply that pushes the price down in exactly those hours. This “revenue value” is about 4.5 ct in 2025, almost 50% below the exchange average.

Table of the 2025 annual market values from Netztransparenz: 8.9 ct/kWh overall, 7.4 for onshore wind, 8.1 for offshore wind and 4.5 for solar Annual market values 2025 by technology. Source: Netztransparenz.

To put the orders of magnitude into perspective, here is an overview of rounded values in ct/kWh for two different years:

  • Household price: 29 (2018) → 37 (2025) (see Verivox chart)
  • Electricity supplier (procurement & sales): 7 (2018) → 16 (2025) (see SMARD chart)
  • Power exchange: 4 (2018) → 9 (2025) (see charts from Fraunhofer ISE and Leonhard Gandhi)
  • Solar market value (capture price): 4.5 (2018) → 4.5 (2025) (see Netztransparenz chart)

Why an international price comparison is so difficult

Pure exchange prices are often misleading because they ignore system costs. A system with a lot of renewables needs more grids (infrastructure), the costs of which are in principle financed through the electricity bill in Germany. In the past, exchange revenues often did not suffice to cover the high fixed costs (CAPEX) of renewables; the difference was covered by the EEG levy.

A look at France shows the other extreme: there, the massive costs of building and maintaining nuclear power plants are often directly supported by the state. The electricity bill of French citizens therefore does not reflect the full system costs, since part of them is financed through general tax revenue. In Germany, by contrast, almost the entire truth is in the electricity bill. Simply quoting cent amounts per kilowatt-hour therefore falls short if one does not consider which infrastructure and subsidy costs are included in the price in each case, or hidden in the state budget.