Price map › Articles
How to use the cheapest electricity hours and how much you can save
Within a single day the exchange price often differs five- to tenfold. Whoever uses that gap pays noticeably less. You need only two things: an exchange-price contract and the habit of glancing at the map.
The typical daily curve
- Night (about 01:00–05:00) – usually the cheapest time: factories and people sleep, the wind blows.
- Morning peak (07:00–09:00) – everyone gets up, turns on heating and coffee machines.
- Midday – in summer and on sunny days the price often dips, because solar panels produce their maximum.
- Evening peak (17:00–20:00) – the most expensive time: the sun has set, people cook at home and charge cars.
The exact hours differ by country and day – which is why the map highlights the three cheapest and three dearest periods for every country.
What is worth shifting
It pays off for appliances that use a lot and do not care when exactly they run:
- Washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher – almost all have a delayed start.
- Electric car charging – the biggest consumer in a household; most chargers and cars let you set a charging window, some read exchange prices themselves.
- Water heater – with a timer or a smart relay the water can be heated at night and used all day.
- Heat pump, underfloor heating, storage heater – the mass of the house is a heat battery: “overheat” by a degree in cheap hours and pause in the dear ones.
- Sauna, pool pump, ventilation with a large motor.
There is little point in fussing over lighting, the TV or a computer – their consumption is tiny.
How much you can save: an example
Suppose you can move 5 kWh a day into the cheap period (one washing-machine cycle, the dishwasher and part of the water heater). If the evening price is €0.25/kWh and the night price €0.08/kWh, the difference is €0.17/kWh, i.e. about €0.85 a day or ~€25 a month. With an electric car using 50 kWh a week, the same gap adds another ~€35 a month. The figures are illustrative – the gap in your zone and season will be different, but the proportions are usually similar.
What you need
- An exchange-price contract. On a fixed tariff you pay the same in every hour and this article gives you nothing. Retailers call the exchange contract different things – “spot price”, “dynamic tariff”, “variable price”; in every case you pay the exchange price plus the retailer’s margin.
- A smart meter that records consumption by hour or by 15 minutes. In the Baltics and the Nordics almost everyone has one.
- Tomorrow’s prices. They are published around 12:45–13:00 CET, so in the evening you can already plan the night and the next day.
Two warnings
- The grid tariff also has day and night rates in some countries – check your distribution operator’s price list; it is not on the map. On how the bill is built: VAT and grid fees.
- Since prices are in 15-minute steps, an hourly average can hide an expensive quarter. For appliances with a timer an hour is fine, but let smart systems read all four periods.
Find the cheapest periods for each country on the map – open a country, and the three greenest cells are your answer.