Original article (in Serbian) was published on 6/3/2024; Author: Stefan Kosanović
Several Serbian web portals inaccurately reported Serbia as having the second-lowest electricity prices in Europe, citing an interview with Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, in Politika early March. She referenced the Household Energy Price Index (HEPI), claiming only Budapest offered cheaper electricity than Belgrade. Yet, a closer examination of HEPI data reveals Serbia actually ranks third in low electricity prices, trailing behind Ukraine and Hungary. Additionally, the HEPI database excludes multiple European regions which, based on research from the previous year, had lower electricity prices than Serbia.
The most recent HEPI report, released for January 2024, positions Serbia favorably among countries with the lowest electricity prices, though not at the second place as previously claimed. In this assessment, Belgrade’s electricity cost stands at 10.48 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, inclusive of taxes and VAT, placing it behind Budapest, which enjoys a lower rate of 9.68 cents. Leading the list is Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, with a significantly lower rate of 6.71 cents, marking the cheapest electricity in the survey of 33 European countries analyzed.
Why Some Countries Lack Data on the Map
As outlined in the methodology, the Household Energy Price Index (HEPI) focuses on analyzing the capital cities of all European Union countries, selected Energy Community members (Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, and Ukraine), as well as Great Britain and Switzerland.
Consequently, several countries with the lowest GDP per capita in Europe, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, Turkey, and Moldova, are excluded from the analysis. Data for Belarus is also absent, and Russia has been removed from the European map.
According to other studies, some of these excluded countries offer electricity at lower prices compared to Serbia.
According to the latest Eurostat data for the first half of 2023, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, Georgia, and Kosovo had lower electricity prices than Serbia. This list also does not encompass all European countries, but rather includes only EU and EFTA countries (excluding Switzerland) and EU candidate countries (excluding Ukraine).
A June 2023 Statista graph depicting global household electricity prices reveals that Russia ranks among the countries with the lowest rates, below Turkey (7.4 euro cents). In Russia, the cost of one kilowatt-hour of energy is approximately 0.07 US dollars, equivalent to around 6.4 euro cents.
Unusual display of data
HEPI used a graph to depict electricity prices by country in a manner that inadvertently caused confusion: countries with the most expensive electricity were colored in dark blue, while those with the cheapest were in white. This design choice led to Ukraine blending into the background, making its position as the country with the lowest electricity cost less noticeable.
Despite this visual misstep, the publication accompanying the graph, found below it, unambiguously states that Kyiv has the lowest electricity prices, followed by Budapest, and then Belgrade.
Some web portals misinterpreted the parameters from the HEPI table and reported that a kilowatt-hour of energy in Serbia is 10.48 euros, instead of euro cents. In its printed edition, Informer attributed this claim to Minister Djedović Handanovic.
following this sort of logic, a household that used, for exampple, 300 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is below the average consumption in Serbia, would have to pay over 350,000 dinars (2,896 EUR) for its electricity bill – 100 times more than the real price.
This news was reported by the Tanjug agency, the web portals Euronews, RTV, Politika, Kurir, Informer, Telegraf, Studio B, 021, In medija, Belami, Biznis.rs and Srpska.one, as well as Informer newspaper on Tuesday, March 5.