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December Storage Index is out!
January 22, 2026 The number of negative prices on the day-ahead market has increased in Germany (and across Europe) in recent years.
Why and what’s next ? Lets see our experts point of view !
Rachel Locquet, responsible for Clean Horizon price forecasts and Salomé Perperot, German market expert at Clean Horizon, analyzed it for you.
For three consecutive years, the record for negative hours was broken on the German day-ahead market, with 301 negative hours in 2023, 457 in 2024 and 573 in 2025.
Negative prices occur when there is a surplus of production, coming from renewable energy assets under PPAs or subsidies that pay a fixed price regardless of the market price and thermal powerplants with high shutdown costs.
Historically, negative prices occur when the residual load (electricity demand including the export/impot balance minus the renewable production from solar and wind assets) is below 3 GW.
With the expected strong buildout in renewable capacities, negative prices could multiply if there is no incentive for renewable powerplants to bid at a minimum price of 0€/MWh.
Last year, the amendment to the EEG scheme tackled this issue, by suspending EEG remuneration as soon as 1-hour of negative price on the day-ahead. This will encourage assets awarded after 2025 to bid at positive prices.
In the long term, as more assets are incentivized to bid at positive prices and electricity demand increases, the occurrence of negative prices is expected to decline.
In the very short term, however, as new renewable power plants are built without amendments to the EEG and electricity demand grows only marginally, the frequency of negative prices is expected to continue increasing.
