State of European Power · January 2018

State of European Power — January 2018

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

152

negative price-hours across 35 zones in January 2018

38.79

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

zones that cleared below zero at least once

January 2018 closed with 152 negative price-hours across the 35 European bidding zones with full coverage this month — 11 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 AT (average 29.83 €/MWh); the priciest was IT-SICI (62.14 €/MWh) — a 32 €/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 (43), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to IT-SICI: from 10 to 196 €/MWh (186 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -76.01 €/MWh in SI on 2018-01-01.

Every zone, one table

Zone	Avg €/MWh	Min	Max	Negative hours
AT	29.83	-50	58.07	43
BE	36.81	-31.82	75.75	8
CH	43.82	-10.48	58.75	7
CZ	33.12	-35	64.09	19
DK1	30.76	-15	57.42	19
DK2	31.56	-15	57.42	18
EE	37.11	15.18	200.02	0
ES	50.05	2.06	77.71	0
FI	37.08	15.18	200.02	0
FR	34.98	-31.82	61.35	8
GR	53.49	28	68.1	0
HR	37.99	-1.85	73.73	1
HU	36.31	-25.97	66.41	2
IT-CNOR	48.24	10	74.43	0
IT-CSUD	47.77	10	74.43	0
IT-NORD	48.25	10	74.43	0
IT-SARD	47.26	5	74.43	0
IT-SICI	62.14	10	196	0
IT-SUD	47.47	10	74.43	0
LT	37.62	15.18	200.02	0
LV	37.59	15.18	200.02	0
NL	38.8	0.55	76.59	0
NO1	32.42	24.07	56.38	0
NO2	32.26	24.07	56.38	0
NO3	32.3	24.67	56.38	0
NO4	31.08	24.67	55.13	0
NO5	32.29	24.07	56.38	0
PT	51.68	13.51	70.88	0
RS	36.43	0	65.12	0
SE1	32.28	15.18	56.38	0
SE2	32.28	15.18	56.38	0
SE3	32.39	15.18	56.38	0
SE4	32.88	15.18	56.38	0
SI	37.95	-76.01	72.87	8
SK	33.41	-35	64.09	19

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-2018-01".