Daily guide · RO · 2026-07-22

Charging an EV in Romania 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.

The pattern this week in Romania is consistent: the cheapest hours cluster around midday, while the evening peak stays expensive. The daytime charging windows averaged 57,27 EUR/MWh, against an evening peak average of 179 EUR/MWh. That is a gap of 68 percent between charging at the right time and charging when demand is highest.

What stands out is the middle of the week. On 18 and 19 July the daytime window fell to 8,22 and 1,45 EUR/MWh, while evenings on those same days ran at 168,32 and 135,03 EUR/MWh. The windows themselves moved a little day to day, opening between 10:00 and 14:00, so the cheap block is not fixed to a single hour. Weekends held the same shape, with Sunday's window at 50,91 and Monday's at 65,25 EUR/MWh.

For a driver charging 150 kWh a week, shifting from the evening peak to the daytime window is worth 18,26 EUR this week, or about 949 EUR across a year. The concrete takeaway: set your charger to run in the midday window, and check the start time daily rather than assuming it is fixed.

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 RO this week.

68%

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

57.27 vs 179

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

≈€949

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
2026-07-15	13:00–16:00	93.27	213.87	−56%
2026-07-16	10:00–13:00	82.53	198.78	−58%
2026-07-17	13:00–16:00	99.28	193.67	−49%
2026-07-18	12:00–15:00	8.22	168.32	−95%
2026-07-19	11:00–14:00	1.45	135.03	−99%
2026-07-20	12:00–15:00	50.91	162.25	−69%
2026-07-21	14:00–17:00	65.25	181.07	−64%

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":"RO","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 RO 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-ro-2026-07-22".

Next issue 2 Oct

The European power roundup. Once a month. Real numbers.

Negative-price records, the month's widest spreads, the zones we failed to forecast — computed from the same production recorders as the API. No filler. Unsubscribe in one click.

✓ Negative hours and the cheapest zones
✓ The month's widest day-ahead spreads
✓ Forecastability ranking — where we missed

Get the next issue in your inbox.

No account. Double opt-in. Nothing else, ever. Privacy.