When power costs less than nothing

Sometimes there's so much wind and solar, and so little demand to soak it up, that the wholesale price falls below zero — producers pay to keep generating. Wattlas treats this as a first-class metric: how many hours a year, when they cluster, and how long each spell lasts.

The multi-year rise
negative-price hours per calendar year

Negative hours have climbed as wind and solar have grown. Each bar is a full calendar year; the current year is shown to date (YTD) and isn't comparable to a finished one. Use the selector below to zoom the day-by-day calendar into any year.

Counted on the canonical hourly grid, grouped by Europe/Berlin calendar year. Complete years from the frozen history; the current year is year-to-date from the live 12-month data. Prices real (ENTSO-E).
A year of negative hours
hours per day, last 12 months

Each cell is one day; the colour shows how many hours cleared below zero (pale = none). Negative days cluster in sunny, windy stretches.

Negative hours/day
Counted on the canonical hourly grid (not 15-minute settlement periods), grouped by Europe/Berlin local calendar day, so day length varies across DST. Prices real (ENTSO-E).
How long do they last?
episode duration · last 12 months

A short dip is easy to ride through; a long one is what hurts. As midday solar grows, the negative spells stretch from an odd hour into long, continuous runs.

An episode = a run of consecutive negative hours within the canonical hourly series, grouped in Europe/Berlin local time. Prices real (ENTSO-E).
Which months go negative
negative hours per month

Negative prices are largely a spring-and-summer story: long days, strong sun, mild demand. Dark winter months barely register.

Counted on the canonical hourly grid (not 15-minute periods), grouped by Europe/Berlin local month. Prices real (ENTSO-E).
Loading data…