State of European Power · April 2018

State of European Power — April 2018

Published 2018-05-02 · every figure recomputed live from the Voltcast production database (last: 2026-07-13T23:49Z) · reproduce any number via the API

13

negative price-hours across 35 zones in April 2018

39.67

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

5

zones that cleared below zero at least once

April 2018 closed with 13 negative price-hours across the 35 European bidding zones with full coverage this month — 5 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 28.84 €/MWh); the priciest was IT-SICI (54.33 €/MWh) — a 25 €/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 (5), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to IT-CNOR: from 0 to 100.53 €/MWh (100.53 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -21.93 €/MWh in AT on 2018-04-30.

Every zone, one table

ZoneAvg €/MWhMinMaxNegative hours
AT 31.86 -13.5 61.21 5
BE 37.74 2.42 75.9 0
CH 34.08 -4.36 64.8 2
CZ 31.81 -12.54 61.41 2
DK1 35.86 0.03 64.99 0
DK2 36.08 0.03 64.99 0
EE 39.81 10.99 87.33 0
ES 42.69 5 75 0
FI 40.14 10.99 107.38 0
FR 33.54 2.42 65.04 0
GR 50.41 0 77 0
HR 34.14 -6.7 66.9 2
HU 31.87 0.01 61.41 0
IT-CNOR 48.55 0 100.53 0
IT-CSUD 50.64 0 100.53 0
IT-NORD 48.53 9.39 100.53 0
IT-SARD 50.64 0 100.53 0
IT-SICI 54.33 0 100.53 0
IT-SUD 50.4 0 100.53 0
LT 40.11 10.99 87.33 0
LV 39.96 10.99 87.33 0
NL 39.72 2.42 75.98 0
NO1 38.81 21.21 61.14 0
NO2 38.54 21.21 61.14 0
NO3 39.13 24.87 64.99 0
NO4 39.54 33.4 64.99 0
NO5 38.84 24.87 61.14 0
PT 42.68 5 66.61 0
RS 28.84 0.6 53.86 0
SE1 38.82 10.99 64.99 0
SE2 38.82 10.99 64.99 0
SE3 38.82 10.99 64.99 0
SE4 38.87 10.99 64.99 0
SI 32.23 1 64.99 0
SK 31.75 -12.54 61.41 2

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-2018-04".