The highest electricity market share in the EU was recorded in Cyprus (88%), reflecting the dominance of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus in the country’s energy market, Eurostat data published on Tuesday show. At the same time, the market shares of the largest electricity and gas producers in the EU have been decreasing in most countries since 2013 when the statistical service of the EU, started collecting this data.

A market share indicator describes how much energy the largest company of the network serves in one market. Larger market shares indicate a monopolistic or oligopolistic market.

The highest share was recorded in Cyprus (88%), reflecting the dominance of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus in the country’s energy market. EAC has been in the first place among the other dominant companies in EU member states since 2013, with its percentage remaining mostly above 90%.

After Cyprus, the highest shares for the largest electricity producer in each country was recorded in France France (79%), Croatia (76%) and Estonia (64%).

The market share of the largest producer in the electricity market was less than 20% in four EU members: Poland, Lithuania, and Italy (all 17%) and Sweden (19%).

On a year-to-year basis, from 2020 to 2021, the largest market share increase was reported in Ireland (32%), while the largest decrease was in Portugal (-32%).

Share increase indicates a rise in market concentration, for example after a merger of large market participants. On the opposite, a share decrease shows a reduction of market concentration.

In Cyprus, the market share for EAC declined slightly compared to the preceding year, from 89.92% (almost 90%) in 2020 to 88.03% in 2021.

Of the other EU countries, 15 reported a change from 2020 to 2021 that is below 10%.

Compared with 2013, the 2021 market share of the largest producer in the electricity market was lower in most EU countries. The decline in the market share ranged from -39 percentage points (pp) in Luxembourg (following the liberalisation of the electricity market) and -20 pp in Slovakia to -1 pp in Bulgaria and -4 pp in Finland.

In contrast, the share remained stable in Sweden (19%) and Poland (17%), while it increased in Hungary (+10 pp), Romania (+3 pp) and Spain (+2 pp)

In Cyprus, the share of the EAC in the market declined by 5 pp compared to 2013, when the company held 93% of the market.

Market shares decrease also in natural gas

For natural gas imports and production, the largest market share was 100% in Estonia, Malta, and Sweden, where only one entity dominated national production and imports.

In 2021, the gross available energy from natural gas was only 2.3% of the total in Sweden. Malta is a small market, so it is expected that one entity could cover market needs.

By contrast, the largest natural gas import and production company had the lowest level of market penetration in Ireland (22%) and Czechia (23%).

Cyprus remains the only country in the EU that does not use natural gas. There were also no available data (or they were confidential) for 2021 for Denmark, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland.

On a year-to-year basis, from 2020 to 2021, the largest market share decrease was reported in Croatia (-45%) and in Czechia (-38%). The number of main companies that import or produce natural gas for the local market increased from 5 to 6 in Czechia and from 3 to 5 in Croatia.  

Compared with 2013, the market share of the largest natural gas import and production company decreased in 14 EU members with available data in 2021. The largest decreases were recorded in Greece (-61 pp), Latvia (-54 pp) and Czechia (-46 pp).

Meanwhile, the share remained the same in Sweden (at 100%), whereas it increased in four EU members: Lithuania (+22 pp), Estonia (+16 pp), Slovakia (+13 pp) and Belgium (+7 pp).