State of European Power · December 2017

State of European Power — December 2017

Published 2018-01-02 · every figure recomputed live from the Voltcast production database (last: 2026-07-13T23:50Z) · reproduce any number via the API

201

negative price-hours across 35 zones in December 2017

43.05

average day-ahead price, €/MWh, across covered zones

7

zones that cleared below zero at least once

December 2017 closed with 201 negative price-hours across the 35 European bidding zones with full coverage this month — 7 of them cleared below zero at least once. Negative prices are no longer an anomaly; they are a structural feature of a grid where solar and wind routinely outrun demand.

The cheapest market of the month was DK1 (average 27.7 €/MWh); the priciest was IT-NORD (65.76 €/MWh) — a 38 €/MWh gap between two markets inside one coupled European system, which is the whole story of constrained interconnection in one number.

AT logged the most negative hours (44), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to SI: from -42.93 to 135.56 €/MWh (178.49 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -66.38 €/MWh in AT on 2017-12-24.

Every zone, one table

ZoneAvg €/MWhMinMaxNegative hours
AT 30.7 -44.05 100.9 44
BE 55.02 4.61 160.55 0
CH 62.54 9.69 123.15 0
CZ 32.75 -32.5 99.2 44
DK1 27.7 -50.04 78.28 30
DK2 29.17 -50.04 78.28 29
EE 32.01 4.12 77.17 0
ES 57.85 5 90 0
FI 31.91 4.12 77.17 0
FR 56.69 1.02 135.56 0
GR 56.22 15 117 0
HR 42.43 -17.85 110.2 3
HU 39.98 0.1 104.98 0
IT-CNOR 65.45 14.72 170 0
IT-CSUD 63.9 14.72 170 0
IT-NORD 65.76 14.72 170 0
IT-SARD 64.59 14.72 170 0
IT-SICI 65.67 14.72 170 0
IT-SUD 60.66 14.72 170 0
LT 33.06 4.12 77.81 0
LV 32.26 4.12 77.17 0
NL 46.47 4.99 105.8 0
NO1 31.07 23.92 77.17 0
NO2 31.06 23.92 77.17 0
NO3 30.14 20.48 65.7 0
NO4 29.51 20.48 53.29 0
NO5 31.07 23.92 77.17 0
PT 59.43 12.6 90 0
RS 41.66 0.16 100.58 0
SE1 29.83 4.12 65.7 0
SE2 29.83 4.12 65.7 0
SE3 30.62 4.12 77.17 0
SE4 32.04 4.12 77.81 0
SI 44.59 -42.93 135.56 7
SK 33.17 -32.5 99.2 44

Method & citation. Hourly means over all published day-ahead auction results per zone (native 15-minute periods averaged per hour); zones with under 20 reported days excluded. Sources: ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, SMARD (CC BY 4.0). Reproduce via GET /api/v1/prices/{zone}. Cite as "Voltcast Research, voltcast.com/research/state-of-european-power-2017-12".