In Europe, the difference in net residential electricity prices was six times higher in December, and 17 times higher for gas, a survey by VaasaETT found. Among EU countries, tariffs in the Hungarian capital remained the lowest.

The Finnish research firm looked at the reasons for, and direction of changes in electricity and gas prices for households in European capitals. It found that Kyiv had the lowest unit prices for electricity and gas among non-EU capitals. The analysis was commissioned by E-Control Austria and the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (MEKH).

The reason why Hungary (in this case Budapest) has consistently been the best performer in the EU is due to the fact that residential tariffs have been frozen at low levels for several years.

The small month-to-month changes in the Budapest tariff in euro is only due to the movement in the forint exchange rate.

From August 2022, a new element of the regulation, the concept of average consumption, was introduced as a new price effect. This means that households in Hungary can only buy electricity and gas at the universal service tariff up to the average consumption, and pay a higher price for the amount above that. However, the impact of this is not specifically addressed in VaasaETT’s survey.

The net end-user electricity price in Budapest was 9.61 euro cents per kilowatt-hour.

The Kyiv price was about a third lower than this, while the EU average was two and a half times higher. Residential electricity was most expensive in Dublin, Ireland (42.75 euro cents), London, UK (40.33 euro cents), and Berlin, Germany (38.09 euro cents).

Compared to a year earlier, Oslo saw the biggest increase in electricity prices, with a 37 percent rise in the electricity component of the tariff. The Norwegian capital was followed by Sweden (plus 14 percent), Spain (plus 8 percent), and Finland (plus 7 percent). The decreases were smaller, for example in Berlin and Dublin (minus 3 percent).

Average electricity end-user prices remained generally stable towards the end of the year, rising slightly in December compared to the previous month, VaasaETT reports.