How we calculate these prices

Every number on this site is either a published market price or an estimate built from it. This page explains exactly which is which, so you can judge how much to trust any given figure.

Where the raw data comes from

Wholesale day-ahead prices are fetched from the ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, the official source published by European transmission system operators. We fetch three times daily — at 12:15, 13:15 and 18:00 CET — because the day-ahead auction clears at midday but publication timing varies by zone. We do not modify, smooth, or interpolate the market prices.

Fifteen-minute intervals

On 30 September 2025 the European single day-ahead coupling moved from hourly to 15-minute market time units. We now receive 96 prices per day rather than 24 for every zone we cover. We display hourly averages by default because that matches how households are billed and how people plan their day, and because the within-hour sawtooth pattern reads as noise on a phone screen. The underlying quarter-hourly values are retained and available.

How the final price is built

The stack is: wholesale price, plus the variable grid charge, plus energy taxes and levies, with VAT applied last to the entire sum. VAT on top of other taxes is not an error — it is how all six countries bill it. Spain is a special case because its electricity excise duty is a percentage of the energy terms rather than a per-kWh amount, so it is applied multiplicatively before VAT.

Why it is called an estimate

Three things we do not know. Your supplier's margin, which is not published anywhere. Your network operator's exact tariff, which varies by region in four of our six markets. And any special rate you might qualify for. We use national typical values for grid charges and label the result an estimate everywhere it appears. You can switch to the raw wholesale price at any time, and that figure is exact.

Where we can do better than an estimate

In Denmark, grid tariffs are published as open data by Energinet, so entering a postcode gives your actual operator's time-banded rate. In Spain the 2.0TD grid tolls are set nationally, so no estimate is involved. In the Netherlands the network charge is a fixed annual amount and does not affect the hourly price at all. In Germany, Sweden and Finland you can enter the rate from your own bill, which beats any lookup we could perform.

Tax rules are dated, not fixed

Tax rates change, sometimes abruptly. Spain altered both VAT and electricity duty twice within five months of 2026. Denmark cut its electricity tax by a factor of ninety for 2026 and 2027 only. We store every rate as a dated rule with a source and a review date, so historical prices remain correct and expiries are visible rather than silent. Where a rule has lapsed and we have not yet updated it, we show the wholesale price and decline to state a final price, rather than publishing a figure we know to be wrong.

Corrections

If a tax or grid figure looks wrong to you, please tell us and include a link to the official source. Readers who know their own market are our best correction mechanism.