Rate systems and selling prices of electricity to the industrial sector in Spain before the Civil War

Abstract

In 1934, a total of 672 electricity companies from all over Spain made public in the Boletines Oficiales of the provinces and in the Butlletí Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya their rate systems and selling prices for power. These data provide comprehensive information about the diverse pricing system used by producers and distributors of electricity in Spain before the Civil War as well as the maximum prices and discounts offered from them to their clients. This paper analyses these prices and discounts from a business and territorial point of view. The remarkable differences in the selling price of kWh among firms and places reflect the existence of a poorly integrated electricity market and the important role small and medium producers and distributors of energy still played when supplying electricity to thousands of consumers around the country on the eve of the Civil War.