Daily guide · AT · 2026-07-13
Charging an EV in Austria this week: what the prices actually said
All numbers computed from the week's published auction results at publication and frozen — this article is an honest snapshot, not a page that rewrites itself. Reproduce via the API.
Every day at 13:00 CET, an auction sets electricity prices for every hour of tomorrow — separately, for each European bidding zone. Those prices routinely differ by a factor of two to three within a single day, because solar floods the middle of the day and demand peaks in the evening. If you charge an EV, that spread is money: the car doesn't care when it charges, only that it's full by morning. This is what the spread looked like in AT this week.
75%
cheaper to charge in the best 3h window than at the evening peak, on average this week
35.49 vs 144.38
€/MWh: best window vs 18–21h evening habit (week average)
≈€849
a year on the wholesale component, for 150 kWh/week of charging at this week's gap
Day by day: when the cheap window actually fell
| Day | Cheapest 3h window | Window avg €/MWh | Evening 18–21h | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-06 | 12:00–15:00 | 45.85 | 146.79 | −69% |
| 2026-07-07 | 12:00–15:00 | 21.01 | 138.6 | −85% |
| 2026-07-08 | 11:00–14:00 | 91.33 | 138.25 | −34% |
| 2026-07-09 | 13:00–16:00 | 44.42 | 166.07 | −73% |
| 2026-07-10 | 12:00–15:00 | 44.37 | 159.11 | −72% |
| 2026-07-11 | 11:00–14:00 | 0.2 | 135.44 | −100% |
| 2026-07-12 | 10:00–13:00 | 1.27 | 126.43 | −99% |
Local time. Notice the window MOVES — sometimes after midnight, sometimes midday when solar peaks. A fixed night tariff catches some of this; following the auction catches all of it.
Automate it in ten minutes
You don't need to read auction results at 13:00 every day — ask the API for the cheapest window and let your wallbox follow it. One call:
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"zone": "AT", "duration_minutes": 180}' \
https://voltcast.com/api/v1/optimize/cheapest-windowHome Assistant users: the Voltcast integration exposes the same window as a sensor you can automate against; evcc users get a ready-made tariff config. The Home plan (€9/mo) covers one zone of your choice with 7-day forecasts — the free tier lets you test everything on DE-LU first. And if you want to charge on a forecast of tomorrow before the auction even publishes, that's the P50 curve — scored publicly every day so you know exactly how much to trust it.
Method & citation. Prices are hourly means of published day-ahead auction results (native 15-minute periods averaged; ENTSO-E/SMARD, attributed). Wholesale-price component only — grid fees and taxes come on top and vary by supplier. Cite as "Voltcast Research, voltcast.com/guides/ev-charging-at-2026-07-13".