Power across Europe costs nearly twice what it did a year ago

Free power got rarer in most of Europe and commoner in Portugal and Spain

A battery charges most cheaply in the hours when the day-ahead price falls to zero or below. Over the last 12 months there were fewer such hours than the year before in 11 of the 17 zones we can compare. Germany had 571 against 682. Portugal went from 402 hours to 914, and Spain went from 787 hours to 1,071. This page counts the hours; it does not yet say why they moved.

Hours in which the day-ahead price was zero or below, in the 12 months to 28 October 2026 and the 12 before. Counted quarter hour by quarter hour where the auction is quarter hourly, by the half hour in Ireland and Britain, and by the hour before 1 October 2025, when the European auction was hourly. Great Britain, Sweden’s Stockholm zone and Ireland have no earlier year here: the site holds Britain’s market index from June 2025, Ireland’s exchange serves one year, and Energinet’s copy of Sweden’s Stockholm zone starts on 1 October 2025.

A battery was paid most for the daily swing in Hungary and least in southern Norway

A two hour battery charges in the eight cheapest quarter hours of the day and sells in the eight dearest. The gap between the two, the spread, is the most it can be paid per megawatt hour for one cycle. Over the last 30 days it averaged €209 in Hungary and €69 in southern Norway. Britain came 14th of 20.

The average daily spread, €/MWh, over the 30 days to 28 October 2026, one dot per zone. EPEX SPOT sells the same figure as its TB2 index; ours is the same arithmetic on the regulators’ open copy of the auction. Every zone, month by month, on the spread page.

Eleven of these markets have a page of their own on this site

Each one counts the batteries from what that country publishes, so the counts are not all the same kind of number; the words under each figure say what it is. Open a country for every battery we can name.

Who lets us show their prices

A day-ahead price belongs to the exchange that runs the auction. Every exchange we asked has now answered. Where an exchange charges for publication, its countries stay grey until the site can pay.

Sources and method

• Germany, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, both Danish zones, France, Hungary, northern Italy, the Netherlands, southern Norway, Poland, southern Sweden, Switzerland and Slovenia: the day-ahead price by quarter hour from SMARD, the Bundesnetzagentur’s open data portal, CC BY 4.0. Source: Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de.
• Spain and Portugal: OMIE’s daily price file. Fuente: OMIE. Ireland and Northern Ireland, one all island price: SEMOpx. Supported by EirGrid Group Data. Sweden’s Stockholm zone: Energinet’s Energi Data Service, CC BY 4.0, held from 1 October 2025. Source: Energinet (www.energidataservice.dk).
• Great Britain: Elexon’s market index, half hourly, converted to euros at the ECB reference rate of 28 October 2026. It is the within day price, close to the auction without being the same number.
• A day’s price is the average of its quarter hours (hours before 1 October 2025; half hours in Ireland and Britain). Europe’s middle price is the median of the zones that report on the day, counted only on days when at least 18 of the 20 do. Each line on the chart is a trailing seven day average.
• Battery counts are the front page’s, read from each country’s page on this site, in that page’s own words; they are not all the same kind of count.
• Data to 29 October 2026 for most zones and 28 October 2026 for Britain and Ireland. The page is rebuilt every morning.