Daily guide · UA · 2026-08-21
Charging an EV in Ukraine 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 is unmistakable: the cheapest hours cluster in the middle of the day, with charging windows opening between 11:00 and 13:00, while evening prices sit far higher. The daytime window averaged 2.667,38 EUR/MWh across the week against an evening peak average of 10.753,20 EUR/MWh, a gap of 75 percent. Charging in the wrong part of the day costs you four times as much.
Volatility in the daytime window was extreme. On 16 August the window average fell to 21 EUR/MWh, and on 15 August to 396,33 EUR/MWh, yet on 19 August it climbed to 5.978,67 EUR/MWh. The evening was steadier but always expensive, ranging from 8.767 EUR/MWh on 15 August to 12.782,33 EUR/MWh on 17 August. The cheap window moved, but it never moved into the evening.
The concrete takeaway: plug in around midday, roughly 11:00 to 13:00, not after work. On 150 kWh a week, shifting out of the evening peak was worth 1.212,87 EUR this week, or 63.069 EUR over a year on the same pattern.
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 UA this week.
75%
cheaper to charge in the best 3h window than at the evening peak, on average this week
2667.38 vs 10753.2
€/MWh: best window vs 18–21h evening habit (week average)
≈€63069
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-14 | 12:00–15:00 | 3532.33 | 11539.1 | −69% |
| 2026-08-15 | 13:00–16:00 | 396.33 | 8767 | −95% |
| 2026-08-16 | 13:00–16:00 | 21 | 9317.65 | −100% |
| 2026-08-17 | 12:00–15:00 | 2448.67 | 12782.33 | −81% |
| 2026-08-18 | 11:00–14:00 | 4599.33 | 11156.33 | −59% |
| 2026-08-19 | 13:00–16:00 | 5978.67 | 11447.33 | −48% |
| 2026-08-20 | 13:00–16:00 | 1695.3 | 10262.67 | −83% |
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": "UA", "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; 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.
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-ua-2026-08-21".
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