Daily guide · IT-NORD · 2026-09-05

Charging an EV in Italy North 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.

This week in Italy North the pattern is consistent: the cheapest stretch sits around midday, while the evening remains reliably expensive. Averaged across the seven days, the midday window came in at 144,74 EUR/MWh against an evening peak of 239,48 EUR/MWh, a gap of 40 percent. For anyone charging an EV, that spread is the whole story.

The daily figures show where the value concentrates. The clear standout is 30 August, with a midday window of 68,85 EUR/MWh, comfortably the lowest of the week; 29 August followed at 102,05 EUR/MWh. From 31 August onward the midday window climbed and settled in the 153 to 174 EUR/MWh range, while evenings pushed higher, peaking at 271,06 EUR/MWh on 2 September. So the cheap window stayed cheaper than the evening every day, but the early-week days offered the deepest discounts.

The concrete takeaway: shift charging into the midday window, which started around 11:00 to 12:00 each day, and avoid the evening peak. On 150 kWh a week that is worth 14,21 EUR, or about 739 EUR over a year.

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 IT-NORD this week.

40%

cheaper to charge in the best 3h window than at the evening peak, on average this week

144.74 vs 239.48

€/MWh: best window vs 18–21h evening habit (week average)

≈€739

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
2026-08-29	12:00–15:00	102.05	214.74	−52%
2026-08-30	12:00–15:00	68.85	208.87	−67%
2026-08-31	11:00–14:00	153.47	230.91	−34%
2026-09-01	12:00–15:00	169.68	234.93	−28%
2026-09-02	12:00–15:00	172.18	271.06	−36%
2026-09-03	12:00–15:00	172.57	258.36	−33%
2026-09-04	11:00–14:00	174.41	257.48	−32%

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":"IT-NORD","duration_minutes":180,
       "objective":"balanced",
       "tariff":{"grid_fee_eur_kwh":0.10,
                 "supplier_markup_eur_kwh":0.02,
                 "vat_percent":25}}' \
  https://voltcast.com/api/v1/optimize/cheapest-window

Home Assistant users: the Voltcast integration exposes the recommended-window timestamp plus charge_now and negative_price_incoming; evcc users get a ready-made tariff config. Enter the variable grid fee, supplier markup and VAT from your bill for cost context. Optional carbon/balanced modes are experimental trailing historical production-profile heuristics—not weather-conditioned forecasts or emissions claims. The Home plan (€9/mo) covers one zone of your choice with 7-day forecasts, these action signals and the battery simulator; public pages and widgets let you inspect the data before subscribing. 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.

Live IT-NORD prices → All daily guides → Start with Home →

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-it-nord-2026-09-05".

Next issue 2 Oct

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