PrecioLuzHow to Save on Your Electricity Bill in Spain
Moving the washing machine to a cheaper hour saves cents, not euros. What really moves the bill is the big loads, daily repetition and the power you have contracted.
You save by shifting the big loads, not the small ones. Hot water, charging an electric car and heating or cooling are the ones that show on the bill when you move them into the off-peak band, which runs from 00:00 to 08:00 Monday to Friday and covers all of Saturday and Sunday. A single wash saves cents: what adds up is repeating it, and checking your contracted power first, since you pay for it every day of the year whether you use it or not.
What actually moves when you move an hour
A Spanish electricity bill runs on two different clocks, and they are easy to confuse.
The first is tolls and charges, the peajes and cargos. The toll pays for the use of the transmission and distribution grids; the charges finance costs of the electricity system. The CNMC, Spain’s markets and competition regulator, and the government approve them, they hold for the whole year, and they are split into three bands — peak, flat and off-peak (punta, llano and valle) — identical in January and in August. They sit inside the bill of any supply up to 15 kW, whatever tariff you are on.
The second is the market component of the PVPC, the Precio Voluntario para el Pequeño Consumidor, Spain’s regulated electricity tariff. That one is not grouped into bands: Royal Decree 216/2014 gives it a different value for every hour of the day. Red Eléctrica publishes it before 20:15 the day before, for all 24 hours of tomorrow.
So what you move is the price of the kilowatt hour. And here is the first honest number: in 2026 the regulated part of the energy term is 0.097553 €/kWh at peak, 0.029267 €/kWh at flat and 0.003292 €/kWh off-peak, before tax and before your supplier’s margin. The distance between the dearest hour and the cheapest is counted in cents per kilowatt hour. Multiply that by what one wash uses and you get cents. Not euros.
Which appliances are worth moving
Almost all of the big consumption in a home is heating or cooling something. That criterion sorts the list.
Worth moving, in this order: hot water, if the tank is electric, because it heats a whole tank and takes a timer; charging an electric car, one of the largest loads a home can have and at the same time the easiest to postpone, because the car sits still all night; and heating and cooling, when it can be brought forward or pushed back without anyone noticing, such as cooling the flat before the evening peak begins.
Then come the usual programmable ones: washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer. The saving per cycle is small, but they repeat several times a week for years and the delay timer is built into the machine: they only pay off by accumulation.
And there are things not worth chasing with a clock: the fridge, which never switches off; the hob and the oven, because meals happen when they happen; the iron, the television, the router, the chargers. Watching those costs more attention than it returns.
The hours are already fixed
The bands of the 2.0TD toll, the one that applies to supplies up to 15 kW, are set in the CNMC’s Circular 3/2020 and are the same twelve months a year.
Monday to Friday, working days: peak from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 18:00 to 22:00; flat from 08:00 to 10:00, from 14:00 to 18:00 and from 22:00 to 24:00; off-peak from 00:00 to 08:00. The mainland, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands share exactly that timetable. Only Ceuta and Melilla have it shifted one hour later, with peak from 11:00 to 15:00 and from 19:00 to 23:00.
Then there is the calendar, the biggest lever and the least used: every hour of Saturday and Sunday is off-peak, and so is 6 January and every national holiday with a fixed date. In 2026 that adds 1 January, 1 May, 12 October, 8 December and 25 December. Holidays without a fixed date are left out: Good Friday, which in 2026 fell on 3 April, was billed like any ordinary working Friday.
And the second clock does not follow the first. The lowest wholesale prices cluster in the middle of the day, when solar output peaks and demand drops — May 2026 was the month with the highest share of photovoltaic generation in the Spanish mix on record, 28.5 % — and those midday hours are peak hours for the tolls. At noon the two clocks pull in opposite directions.
- Find your two or three big loads. Water tank, car, heating and cooling. If you have none of them, your margin is in contracted power.
- Write down your off-peak band. 00:00 to 08:00 on weekdays, and the whole weekend. In Ceuta and Melilla everything else runs an hour later.
- Check tomorrow's price after 20:15. In PrecioLuz it arrives as an alert, with the day's average and the cheapest stretch for your zone.
- Set the delay timer that same evening. You decide once and the machine keeps the appointment.
- Leave threshold alerts on for whatever cannot be programmed: they arrive the moment the price enters what you have marked as cheap.
Contracted power is paid every single day
The power term is not billed on what you use but on what you could use at once. It runs in euros per contracted kilowatt per year, and it splits into only two periods, not three: one groups peak and flat, from 08:00 to 24:00 Monday to Friday on working days, and the other is off-peak. In 2026 the regulated part of that term is 27.704413 €/kW per year in the peak-flat period and 0.725423 €/kW per year off-peak.
That is paid for every contracted kilowatt even if the house sits empty all year. Dropping one kilowatt, if you genuinely have it spare, takes that amount off without changing a single habit. Cutting too deep carries an immediate penalty: the main breaker trips when the oven, the hob and the water tank coincide.
Two limits worth knowing: the 2.0TD toll runs up to 15 kW, and since 1 January 2024 only individuals and micro-enterprises with 10 kW or less contracted in every period can take the PVPC.
What to expect from all this
No saving percentage is going in here, because it depends on how much energy you move, how often, and which contract you hold. Tolls and charges are the same for everyone, but the price of energy only follows all 24 hours of the day if you are on the PVPC. At 31 December 2024 only 28.5 % of domestic consumers were; the rest have a price agreed with their supplier, and then shifting hours only shifts the regulated part.
Taxes sit on top, not inside: the Special Electricity Tax, at an ordinary rate of 5.11269632 %, and VAT, which since 1 June 2026 is back at 21 %. They are worked out on what you have already spent, so every kilowatt hour you do not use at peak saves its share of tax as well.
And then there is everything that has nothing to do with the clock, which in many homes weighs more: washing cold, one degree less on the thermostat, not heating water for an empty house while you are away. Moving the hour is free and it adds up. But it adds up slowly, and only if what you move is heavy.
Check the price before you set the timer
PrecioLuz shows the price hour by hour for your zone and sends an alert each evening with how tomorrow looks. From there you decide when each machine starts.
Frequently asked questions
When is electricity cheapest in Spain?
For tolls and charges, the off-peak band runs from 00:00 to 08:00 Monday to Friday on working days, and Saturdays, Sundays, 6 January and fixed-date national holidays are off-peak for all 24 hours. The market component of the PVPC is a different thing: it changes every hour, and its lowest point does not always fall inside the off-peak band.
How much do I save by running the washing machine at night?
Cents per cycle. The gap between peak and off-peak in the regulated part of the energy term is counted in cents per kilowatt hour, and one wash uses little. The saving shows up through repetition and in the big loads, never in a single cycle, and nobody can promise you a figure without knowing your contract.
Are the time bands different in the Canary and Balearic Islands?
No. The CNMC's Circular 3/2020 groups the mainland, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands in a single column, with identical peak, flat and off-peak hours. The only territories where the bands run one hour later are Ceuta and Melilla.
Does lowering my contracted power reduce the bill?
The power term is paid per contracted kilowatt per year, used or not. In 2026 the regulated part is 27.704413 €/kW per year in the peak-flat period and 0.725423 €/kW per year off-peak. One kilowatt less takes that amount off every year, but go too low and the main breaker will trip when several appliances coincide.