End of the night-time electricity tariff

What times will be cheapest?

From 1 January 2025 the night-time electricity is abolished and so the low consumption zone changes and will be from 10:00 to 15:00.

As the energy analyst, Michalis Christodoulides, had mentioned in ERT, "we are moving consumption from 10 am to 3 pm, because these are the hours when we have the most electricity production, because the photovoltaics are working."

Indeed, wanting to explain the rationale for this change, he stressed that "the issue is because the Ministry of Energy and Environment, Mr. Skylakakis in particular, believes that this measure will be the most efficient. (...) Because at night, in the evening hours, our expensive thermal plants that burn natural gas and lignite are operating, so electricity is very expensive. (...) So, the cheap electricity should be used by the consumer during the morning and midday hours when the photovoltaic plants are working and secondly, the excess green energy should not be thrown away during those hours, because we have no storage systems".

What is the bi-zonal tariff

On whether this change is also linked to electricity tariffs, Christodoulides clarified that "those who had a night tariff, for example, will automatically be able to switch to the bi-zonal tariff and it is called bi-zonal because one zone is from 10 am to 3 pm and the other is the weekend which will have extended hours".

The energy analyst explained that consumers will see large increases if they do not move their activities to these hours. "If you can't move your energy consumption from the evening hours to this zone, the early afternoon hours, you're screwed. It can be as much as 40 to 60 per cent more expensive electricity than if you had a blue simple fixed tariff."