State of European Power · August 2020

State of European Power — August 2020

Published 2020-09-02 · every figure recomputed live from the Voltcast production database (last: 2026-07-13T23:55Z) · reproduce any number via the API

28

negative price-hours across 38 zones in August 2020

33.44

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

4

zones that cleared below zero at least once

August 2020 closed with 28 negative price-hours across the 38 European bidding zones with full coverage this month — 4 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 NO5 (average 3.47 €/MWh); the priciest was IT-SICI (53.91 €/MWh) — a 50 €/MWh gap between two markets inside one coupled European system, which is the whole story of constrained interconnection in one number.

IE-SEM logged the most negative hours (18), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to SE1: from 2.15 to 147.54 €/MWh (145.39 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -56.20 €/MWh in DE-LU on 2020-08-23.

Every zone, one table

ZoneAvg €/MWhMinMaxNegative hours
AT 35.46 0.89 86.81 0
BE 35.55 0.1 90 0
CH 35.53 7.71 84.19 0
CZ 34.58 -10 84.01 1
DE-LU 34.5 -18.88 84.83 6
DK1 34.57 -16.18 90 3
DK2 40.95 11.84 147.54 0
EE 40.92 3.89 147.54 0
ES 36.21 20 55.69 0
FI 40.57 3.89 147.54 0
FR 36.76 6.87 90 0
GR 46.18 0 112.17 0
HR 38.15 10 90 0
HU 37.63 10.17 84.01 0
IE-SEM 36.9 -10 105 18
IT-CNOR 40.4 10 75 0
IT-CSUD 40.94 10 75 0
IT-NORD 37.99 10 75 0
IT-SARD 40.67 0 75 0
IT-SICI 53.91 8 84.91 0
IT-SUD 40.45 8 75 0
LT 43.35 7.59 147.54 0
LV 43.44 7.59 147.54 0
NL 34.07 2.28 90 0
NO1 3.73 0.72 16.56 0
NO2 3.93 0.72 16.56 0
NO3 6.48 1.66 42.33 0
NO4 5.74 1.66 15.85 0
NO5 3.47 0.72 16.56 0
PL 52.29 35.76 77.16 0
PT 36.13 20.2 51.77 0
RS 37.26 12.08 78.09 0
SE1 17.58 2.15 147.54 0
SE2 17.59 2.15 147.54 0
SE3 33.74 2.15 147.54 0
SE4 40.44 2.82 147.54 0
SI 37.61 10 90 0
SK 35.18 0.1 84.01 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-2020-08".