Overall, the factors that affect the price of electricity may be divided in three groups:

1. Global factors: fuel, oil, and CO2 prices, political situation (e.g., the unrest in Libya, abolishment of nuclear power plants in Germany), and natural disasters (e.g., the tsunami in Japan).
2. Regional factors: the hydrological situation, outages at major power plants and transmission lines.
3. Local factors: the flooding season, limitations of the transmission network, power plant outages.