The Czech Republic now has Europe's most expensive electricity

Energy prices are soaring across Europe, but some countries are being hit harder than others. Electricity costs in the Czech Republic are now the highest in Europe, according to the July 2022 Household Energy Prices Index.

The Household Energy Prices Index measures the average cost of electricity in kilowatt-hours across capital cities in each European country. The values are then expressed through purchasing power parity to adjust for income differences across different countries.

The average cost of electricity in Prague in July 2022 was 52.15 euro cents per kilowatt-hour at the Czech Republic's purchasing power parity, good enough to edge London, United Kingdom (51.85 euro cents) for the most expensive electricity in Europe.

To compare the Czech Republic to some of its V4 neighbors, the cost of electricity in the country is more than 60 percent higher than Poland (31.83 euro cents per kilowatt-hour) over double that of Slovakia (23.51) and more than triple prices in Hungary (16.20).

Even without expressing through purchasing power parity, the raw cost of electricity in Prague (41 euro cents per kilowatt-hour) was the fifth-highest in Europe, coming in behind only London, Copenhagen, Rome, and Amsterdam.

The Household Energy Prices Index includes data from European Union Member States as well as other countries in Europe, including Russia. Like Hungary, electricity prices in Russia are less than a third of those in the Czech Republic when expressed through purchasing power parity.

Lowest electricity costs in Europe? Prices in Norway (12.83 euro cents per kilowatt-hour), Switzerland (13.8), and Malta (13.95) came in at around a quarter of those in the Czech Republic.

Counter-intuitively, the Czech Republic is also one of Europe's largest exporters of electricity. Over the first half of 2022, the country exported five million more megawatt-hours of electricity than it consumed, according to EnnAppSys.

In the EU, only Sweden, Germany, France and Spain have exported more electricity than the Czech Republic so far this year. In 2020, the Czech Republic was the world's ninth-largest exporter of electricity, according to Statista.

Surging electricity prices in the Czech Republic aren't helped by high tax levels. According to the Household Energy Prices Index, Czech residents are taxed 24 percent on electricity costs, compared to a Europe-wide average of 18 percent.