Daily guide · HU · 2026-09-06

Negative-price watch Hungary: this week's floor, and what's ahead

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.

Hungary registered five negative-price hours this week, with the floor reaching -1,43 EUR/MWh on 30 August at hour 13. That timing is unsurprising: the midday solar peak continues to be the main driver of sub-zero pricing. Alongside those five negative hours, a further seven hours cleared below 10 EUR/MWh, which points to a broader band of soft midday pricing rather than isolated spikes.

For readers, the signal is one of persistence rather than severity. The floor this week was shallow, close to zero, so the downside was limited in magnitude. But with 1.003 negative periods recorded year-to-date, the structural pattern is well established, and the modelled probability of a negative price over the next seven days stands at 0,99. On that basis, further negative hours should be treated as the base case, not the exception.

The concrete takeaway: plan around the midday window. With near-certain negative-price probability ahead and a cluster of hours below 10 EUR/MWh, flexible load and storage charging are best positioned to capture the soft midday block over the coming days.

When wind and solar produce more than a zone can consume or export, the day-ahead auction clears below zero — producers literally pay consumers to take power. Negative prices went from curiosity to structural feature across Europe, and for anyone with flexible load or storage they're the most interesting hours of the year. Here's where HU stands.

-1.43

this week's floor (€/MWh), 2026-08-30 at 13:00 local

5 / 7

hours below €0 / below €10 this week

1,003

negative delivery periods in 2026 so far (HU)

The forward view

Our negative-price risk model (Brier-scored daily against climatology — record on /accuracy) currently puts the peak probability of a sub-zero period in HU over the next 7 days at 99%. That number updates daily via GET /v1/risk/negative/HU — a 14-day calendar of per-15-minute probabilities.

Never miss one again

The useful pattern isn't watching a dashboard — it's a webhook that fires when tomorrow's auction clears negative anywhere in your zone:

curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"event": "negative_prices", "zone": "HU", "url": "https://your-app/hook"}' \
  https://voltcast.com/api/v1/webhooks

It delivers seconds after the 13:00 CET publication, HMAC-signed. Journalists and analysts: the live HU tracker has the all-time records, monthly history and a CSV download — free to cite with attribution. Home+ can download its entitled interval prices and forward risk directly to Excel from the API; the full 2015+ archive remains a Pro+ bulk export.

Live HU 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/negative-watch-hu-2026-09-06".

Next issue 2 Oct

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✓ The month's widest day-ahead spreads
✓ Forecastability ranking — where we missed

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