2025 marked by negative electricity prices: new records set in Czechia and beyond

Last year again brought no fundamental change in the trend of the growing occurrence of negative or zero electricity prices on short-term markets. As in the previous two years, the occurrence of negative prices increased, at a faster or slower pace depending on the region of Europe. In the case of the Czech day-ahead electricity market, the increase was not as strong last year as in the previous year; however, the number of such hours grew at a similar pace in neighbouring Germany and other countries.

Negative electricity prices have become an increasingly common phenomenon in a number of European countries in recent years. While negative or zero prices are not new to the past two or three years, their occurrence began to rise sharply during this period. Before the energy crisis, electricity prices on European day-ahead markets fell below zero for tens of hours per year; in recent years, this has already risen to hundreds of hours.