State of European Power · March 2018

State of European Power — March 2018

Published 2018-04-02 · every figure recomputed live from the Voltcast production database (last: 2026-08-26T19:28Z) · reproduce any number via the API

62

negative price-hours across 36 zones in March 2018

48.8

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

7

zones that cleared below zero at least once

March 2018 closed with 62 negative price-hours across the 36 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 RS (average 34.44 €/MWh); the priciest was TR (158.53 €/MWh) — a 124 €/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 (21), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to DK2: from -12.12 to 255.02 €/MWh (267.14 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -50.58 €/MWh in AT on 2018-03-18.

Every zone, one table

ZoneAvg €/MWhMinMaxNegative hours
AT 36.83 -43.8 76.75 21
BE 50.7 9.87 175 0
CH 53.18 14.1 119.38 0
CZ 37.72 -19.6 77.96 4
DK1 37.98 -12.12 93.43 12
DK2 42.93 -12.12 255.02 11
EE 45.31 33.05 255.02 0
ES 40.16 2.3 70 0
FI 45.59 33.05 255.02 0
FR 48.19 8.58 133.39 0
GR 44.23 0 145 0
HR 44.66 -8.7 140.19 3
HU 40.4 0 110 0
IT-CNOR 56.89 10 133.39 0
IT-CSUD 55.61 5 133.39 0
IT-NORD 58.01 12 150 0
IT-SARD 55.61 5 133.39 0
IT-SICI 53.81 1 123 0
IT-SUD 52.49 5 118.2 0
LT 46.08 33.05 255.02 0
LV 46.08 33.05 255.02 0
NL 51.82 12.1 175 0
NO1 44.35 34.99 255.02 0
NO2 41.89 34.99 83.16 0
NO3 44.89 34.99 255.02 0
NO4 44.84 34.17 255.02 0
NO5 42.38 34.99 83.16 0
PT 39.72 2.3 70 0
RS 34.44 0 89.98 0
SE1 44.84 33.05 255.02 0
SE2 44.84 33.05 255.02 0
SE3 44.84 33.05 255.02 0
SE4 44.95 33.05 255.02 0
SI 42.25 -11.86 125.86 7
SK 39.6 -19.6 110 4
TR 158.53 0 216.77 0

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-2018-03".

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