State of European Power · April 2021

State of European Power — April 2021

Published 2021-05-02 · every figure recomputed live from the Voltcast production database (last: 2026-07-13T23:54Z) · reproduce any number via the API

155

negative price-hours across 38 zones in April 2021

54.96

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

19

zones that cleared below zero at least once

April 2021 closed with 155 negative price-hours across the 38 European bidding zones with full coverage this month — 19 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 SE2 (average 26.43 €/MWh); the priciest was IE-SEM (85.5 €/MWh) — a 59 €/MWh gap between two markets inside one coupled European system, which is the whole story of constrained interconnection in one number.

DK1 logged the most negative hours (22), and the widest intra-month price range belonged to IE-SEM: from 0 to 361.36 €/MWh (361.36 €/MWh of spread — the raw material for every battery business case). The single deepest print of the month was -60.00 €/MWh in BE on 2021-04-05.

Every zone, one table

ZoneAvg €/MWhMinMaxNegative hours
AT 60.77 -4.51 121.81 3
BE 57.04 -60 125 19
CH 63.67 -21.9 137.48 9
CZ 60.28 -36.26 120.87 15
DE-LU 54.51 -45.78 119.13 21
DK1 48.02 -37.01 125 22
DK2 47.92 -11.59 125 8
ES 65.06 0.9 93.92 0
FI 36.83 -1.41 125 5
FR 63.15 -6.94 163.77 2
GR 64.2 10.4 101.73 0
HR 64.51 -2.09 125 1
HU 62.97 0.02 120.87 0
IE-SEM 85.5 0 361.36 0
IT-CALA 67.21 3.49 104.5 0
IT-CNOR 69.1 3.49 125 0
IT-CSUD 68.37 3.49 108.88 0
IT-NORD 69.09 3.49 125 0
IT-SARD 67.05 0 108.88 0
IT-SICI 74.1 3.49 160.44 0
IT-SUD 66.92 3.49 101.73 0
LT 44.81 -1.41 125 5
LV 43.69 -1.41 125 5
NL 53.87 -37.01 125 7
NO1 45.04 1.77 125 0
NO2 44.21 1.77 121 0
NO3 27.72 1.49 85.57 0
NO4 26.84 3.54 85.57 0
NO5 44.22 10.44 84.98 0
PL 59.36 12.2 83.04 0
PT 64.98 0.9 90.71 0
RS 63.62 15.09 118.64 0
SE1 26.51 -1.41 85.57 5
SE2 26.43 -1.41 85.57 5
SE3 33.19 -1.41 125 5
SE4 42.54 -1.41 125 5
SI 64.51 -2.09 125 1
SK 60.69 -36.26 120.87 12

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-2021-04".