Electricity Spot Market Prices Explained
Spot market electricity prices are short-term wholesale prices set on power exchanges like EPEX SPOT, quoted in euros per megawatt-hour (€/MWh) for delivery the same or next day. They change every hour based on supply and demand, and can even turn negative when renewable generation is high.
The spot market is where electricity is traded for near-term delivery, as opposed to long-term futures contracts. In Europe the reference exchange is EPEX SPOT. Prices are quoted in €/MWh (divide by 10 for ct/kWh) and are set separately for each hour of the day, so a single day has 24 different prices reflecting real-time scarcity or surplus.
There are two spot segments. The day-ahead market closes with a single auction (around 12:00 CET) that fixes one price per hour for the next day. The intraday market then trades continuously up to minutes before delivery, letting participants correct forecast errors. Day-ahead is the price most tariffs and analyses refer to.
Day-ahead prices come from a merit-order auction: all generation offers are stacked from cheapest (solar and wind, near-zero marginal cost) to most expensive (gas), and the last unit needed to meet demand sets the price for everyone. That is why prices spike on calm, dark, high-demand evenings and collapse when sun and wind flood the grid.
When must-run and subsidised renewable output exceeds demand and curtailing is costly, generators pay to keep feeding in, so the price drops below zero. Germany has seen more negative-price hours recently, and spot data through spring 2026 suggests the summer may bring even more negative hours than 2025.
Live and historical day-ahead prices are published by EPEX SPOT and by aggregators, usually as an hourly curve. If you have a dynamic tariff or a smart meter, you pay close to this hourly price, so shifting flexible loads — EV charging, heat pump, battery — into cheap or negative hours directly lowers your bill.
Coupled European day-ahead markets (Germany, France, the Netherlands and neighbours) run on the same exchange framework. Elsewhere it varies: some markets are liberalised with active wholesale spot pricing while others remain regulated, so whether flexible spot prices exist depends on the country.