Electricity prices hour by hour: how to read and use them

Electricity prices in Denmark are set for every hour of the day on the Nord Pool power exchange — the day before the power is delivered. The price swings hour by hour because the supply of wind and solar power and total demand change around the clock: electricity is typically cheapest at night and in windy weather, and most expensive during the evening peak when people cook dinner. You can see today’s and tomorrow’s electricity prices hour by hour for DK1 and DK2, including tariffs, taxes and VAT. If you have an hourly-metered contract, you can take advantage of the swings by shifting flexible consumption — hot water, heating, charging — into the cheap hours. And the same devices can earn money on something else entirely: helping Energinet keep the grid in balance. We return to that at the end of this article.

Where does the hourly price come from?

Denmark is part of the integrated Northern European power market. Every day, the Nord Pool exchange runs an auction for the next day’s electricity — the so-called day-ahead or spot market. Producers bid in how much they can deliver and at what price; electricity retailers bid in how much their customers are expected to use. The auction matches supply and demand for each individual hour, and prices for the entire next day are published in the afternoon the day before.

Denmark is split into two bidding zones: DK1 (Jutland and Funen) and DK2 (Zealand and the islands east of the Great Belt). The two zones can have different prices in the same hour, because the connections between them and to neighbouring countries cannot move unlimited amounts of power.

If your electricity contract is hourly metered — often called a spot contract — your price follows the exchange prices hour by hour, plus your retailer’s margin. If you have a fixed-price contract, you pay the same around the clock, and there is little to gain from shifting consumption.

Why the price swings

Four factors pull the price up and down over the day:

• Wind and solar. When the wind blows hard or the sun is high, cheap power is plentiful and the spot price falls — in special situations it can even turn negative. In still, grey weather the opposite happens.
• Demand. We use the most electricity in the morning and again in the late afternoon, when dinner is being cooked — the evening peak. At night, demand is low.
• Interconnectors. Denmark trades power with Norway, Sweden, Germany and several other countries. Prices in neighbouring markets spill over into DK1 and DK2, depending on how much the cables can carry.
• Fuel prices. When wind and solar are not enough, thermal power plants set the price — and their costs for gas, coal and CO2 allowances push the spot price up.

The result is a pattern that repeats on most days: cheap night hours, expensive morning hours, often cheap midday hours with solar, and the most expensive hours around the evening peak. But the pattern is no guarantee — a still, cold evening can differ sharply from a windy weekend.

The spot price is only one part of your bill

It is worth knowing the difference between the spot price and the other parts of the bill, because they behave differently:

Note the grid tariff: many grid companies charge more for transporting power in the busy hours and less at night. That means the cheap hours are often doubly cheap — both spot price and tariff are low — while the evening peak is doubly expensive. Check your own grid company’s tariffs, as they vary from area to area.

How to make hourly prices work for you

1. Get an hourly-metered contract. Without it, your price does not follow the market and there is nothing to shift for. Most retailers offer spot contracts.
2. Identify your movable consumption. That is consumption where your comfort does not depend on exactly when the power is used — typically water heating, charging and appliances with timers.
3. Automate it. Nobody wants to look up spot prices every evening. Let technology shift the consumption for you — that is the whole point of controlled devices.
4. Never compromise on comfort. Good flexibility is invisible. The water must be hot and the house must hold the temperature you have chosen.

What can be shifted in practice?

• Electric water heater or heating element: the water stays hot for hours, so it makes no difference whether it was heated at 3 a.m. or 5 p.m.
• Heat pump: the house is a large thermal store, and heating can be shifted without any noticeable temperature change.
• Home battery: can charge when power is cheap and supply the household when it is expensive. Read more in our article on home battery price and earnings.
• Electric car: for most people, charging can wait until the cheap night hours.

Grid balancing: a different income on top

Shifting consumption after the spot price saves money on your bill. But there is another opportunity many people overlook: the same devices can sell flexibility to Energinet as ancillary services — and that is an income, not just a saving.

The grid must always be in balance between production and consumption to keep the frequency at 50 Hz. Energinet therefore buys reserves such as FCR-D in daily auctions — one for every hour of the day. A single household is far too small to participate, but an aggregator like NM1 pools the devices of many households into one virtual power plant and bids them in together. How the balance works technically is covered in our article on grid balancing.

NM1 has been live since June 2025. Activations are short — seconds to minutes — and designed not to affect comfort or equipment. The income is shared between you and NM1 and paid out quarterly as an ordinary bank transfer. FCR-D prices are set in daily auctions and vary; historical earnings are no guarantee of future earnings. You can see how the earnings are calculated on the earnings page, and find the right device among our products.

In short

• Electricity prices are set for every hour on Nord Pool, the day before delivery, and differ between DK1 and DK2.
• Prices are typically low at night and in windy weather and high at the evening peak — but the pattern shifts with the weather.
• With an hourly-metered contract and a time-of-use grid tariff, there are two reasons to move consumption into the cheap hours.
• Grid balancing through ancillary services is a separate income on top of the saving — the two do not exclude each other.