Day-Ahead Price · DE/LU

What is the German day-ahead market?

The German day-ahead market covers the DE/LU bidding zone, which comprises Germany and Luxembourg, and serves as a central price reference for the German electricity system. Prices are determined in a daily auction: market participants submit buy and sell orders for delivery periods of the following day, and a uniform clearing price is calculated for each delivery period.

The auction is operated by nominated electricity market operators, most prominently EPEX SPOT, and is coupled with neighboring European markets through the Single Day-Ahead Coupling (SDAC). This coupling means that German prices are directly influenced by supply, demand, and transmission capacity across the connected European bidding zones. In addition to the coupled auction, EXAA operates a separate day-ahead auction for the German market earlier in the day.

Official market data for the DE/LU zone is published by the German regulator Bundesnetzagentur on SMARD and on the ENTSO-E Transparency Platform.

Why DE/LU day-ahead price forecasts are important

The day-ahead auction is a one-shot game (or, in terms of an energy economist: a uniform pricing call auction). Orders must be submitted before gate closure, and once the auction clears, positions are binding.

Accurate price forecasts matter for a wide range of market roles. Direct marketers of wind and solar assets use them to decide how much volume to place in the auction versus later markets. Battery storage operators use them to schedule charging and discharging cycles across the highest spreads of the day. Industrial consumers and utilities use them to optimize procurement and flexible load. Asset optimizers use them to allocate capacity between day-ahead, intraday, and balancing markets.

The stakes of forecast errors have grown with the German energy transition. High shares of renewables produce steep price ramps, frequent negative prices, and large daily spreads. In this environment, forecast quality can materially affect trading profit and loss. Telescope Energy provides day-ahead price forecasts for the German market with probabilistic outputs for these conditions.

How our forecast works

Telescope Energy operates a collaborative forecasting platform. Our proprietary ensemble engine combines state-of-the-art models developed by our research team with forecasts from the best independent expert forecasters. Each contributing model is continuously evaluated against realized market outcomes, and the ensemble weights individual signals by their recent performance. The combined signal is designed to use complementary model strengths and reduce dependence on any single model.

We offer forecast lead times ranging from days up to a few minutes before market gate closure. Forecasts can be updated as new weather, load, and market information becomes available. Beyond the standard day-ahead horizon, the product covers delivery through D+7. Forecasts are delivered through the Telescope API for integration into existing trading workflows.

What drives German day-ahead prices?

German day-ahead prices reflect the interaction of several fundamental drivers. Wind and solar generation are the most important short-term factors: high renewable feed-in pushes prices down and regularly into negative territory, while low feed-in requires dispatch of conventional plants at higher marginal cost. Electricity demand follows daily, weekly, and seasonal patterns and is additionally shaped by temperature, industrial activity, and holidays.

On the supply side, fuel and carbon prices set the cost of the marginal power plant, so gas and EU ETS certificate prices feed through to the day-ahead price. The availability of conventional generation and cross-border transmission capacity determines how much flexible supply can reach the German market, making outages and interconnector constraints relevant price drivers. Finally, flexible resources such as battery storage, pumped hydro, and price-responsive demand increasingly shape the intraday price profile within each delivery day.

A reliable forecast has to capture all of these drivers simultaneously and adapt as their relative importance shifts. This is precisely what an ensemble of diverse, continuously benchmarked models is designed to do.

What is the most accurate forecast for German day-ahead prices?

Accuracy claims are easy to make and hard to verify, which is why Telescope Energy is built around transparency. We publish historical forecasts alongside realized market prices, free of charge, so that every prospective customer can benchmark our DE/LU day-ahead forecast against their current provider or internal models before committing to anything. We outperform previous-day benchmarks by over 60% (MAE at +1 hour before gate closure) and regularly rank at the top in third-party benchmarks. See the top of this page for the most recent accuracy metrics for our day-ahead price forecast.

Our ensemble approach is designed for consistent accuracy across market regimes, including the situations where forecasts matter most: negative price hours, extreme spreads, and sudden shifts in renewable feed-in. Because the ensemble reweights contributing models based on ongoing performance, the forecast keeps improving as the German market evolves, without depending on any single model remaining state of the art.

Frequently asked questions

What does this forecast include?

The product provides quarter-hourly P10, P50, and P90 price forecasts in EUR/MWh for delivery from D+1 through D+7.

How often is this forecast updated?

Updates depend on new data and model submissions; there is no fixed update frequency. The submission cutoff is 11:55 local time on the day before delivery, five minutes before the 12:00 market gate.

How is this forecast delivered?

Forecasts are delivered through the Telescope API for integration into trading, nomination, analytics, and asset-optimization workflows. Webhooks notify you of new versions to retrieve via the API; periodically check the API to catch missed notifications. Simply request a pilot to evaluate the product with your own benchmark and use case.

What does this forecast cost?

Our day-ahead forecasts are priced competitively as subscriptions and we offer free backtesting and trials. See our pricing page for more information.