Daily guide · NO5 · 2026-09-02

Charging an EV in Norway Bergen 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 Bergen the cheapest charging windows averaged 112,88 EUR/MWh, against an evening peak average of 135,81 EUR/MWh. That is a gap of 17 percent between charging at the right hour and defaulting to the evening. The pattern is consistent enough to plan around: on every one of the six days the window average sat below the evening average.

Timing matters more as the week progresses. The cheap windows drift from midday early on (starting at 12:00 on 26 August and 13:00 on 27 August) to the small hours later, with the 30 August window opening at 04:00 at just 79,30 EUR/MWh, the lowest reading of the week. Evenings, by contrast, stayed clustered between 129,21 and 143,92 EUR/MWh, offering little relief for those who plug in after work.

The concrete takeaway: over a 150 kWh charging week, shifting into the cheap window rather than the evening peak saves about 3,44 EUR, or roughly 179 EUR across a year. Set a timer for the small hours later in the week, and check the window start each day rather than assuming a fixed slot.

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 NO5 this week.

17%

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

112.88 vs 135.81

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

≈€179

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
2026-08-26	12:00–15:00	137.22	140.48	−2%
2026-08-27	13:00–16:00	127.98	143.92	−11%
2026-08-28	01:00–04:00	117.99	133.53	−12%
2026-08-29	03:00–06:00	96.4	129.71	−26%
2026-08-30	04:00–07:00	79.3	129.21	−39%
2026-08-31	02:00–05:00	118.39	138	−14%

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":"NO5","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 NO5 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-no5-2026-09-02".

The monthly European power roundup

Negative-price records, the biggest spreads, which zones were hardest to forecast — every number computed from our production data, on the 2nd of each month. No filler, unsubscribe anytime.