What drives electricity prices in Austria?

AT is a hydro-dominated zone (62.2% of recent generation). Prices here move on water: reservoir filling levels set the opportunity cost of every MWh, so weekly hydrology matters more than daily weather. Dry spells lift the whole price level for months; wet ones sink it. Day-to-day volatility is usually low — until a regime shift arrives, at which point prices can re-level in days (as the July 2026 Nordic jump showed). Interconnector flows to thermal neighbours set the ceiling and floor.

The zone has cleared negative 236 hours so far this year (live counters on the tracker), inside a year-to-date range of -496.86 to 588.32 €/MWh. Our serving model (volt-4) currently runs 20% less error than the naive baseline (backtest, 29 scored days) — verified daily on the public scorecard.