The duck curve is deepening: cheap at midday, expensive in the evening

On a sunny day, power is cheap around midday and expensive in the evening. Plot the average price for each hour and the line looks like a duck: a deep belly in the afternoon and a tall neck in the evening. In 2026 that shape has become sharper, which affects everyone who buys power by the hour or by the quarter hour.

The gap between midday and evening is almost a third larger

In the average daily profile from April to September 2026, the most expensive hour (8 pm) was €175 per MWh above the cheapest (1 pm), against €133 a year earlier. In both years the cheapest hour was 1 pm: €7.13 in 2025 and €22.23 in 2026. The most expensive hour was 8 pm, at €140.21 in 2025 and €197.17 in 2026. So the belly of the duck rose by €15 and the neck by €57.

Measured over the whole year, the gap within a day is also growing. The average difference between the most expensive and the cheapest hour of a day rose from €137.68 to €156.01 per MWh from January to September, an increase of 13%. Only in January and February was the gap smaller than a year earlier.

Sun pushes midday down, the evening follows gas

The gap arises because solar power pushes the price down around midday and then disappears in the evening. In July 2025 the ACM, the Dutch regulator, described how on warm, windless evenings the sun sets while demand for power stays high. On 1 July 2025 this pushed the day-ahead hourly price between 8 pm and 9 pm to almost €520 per MWh. The ACM also points out that the power price moves with the gas price, because a large share of electricity is generated in gas-fired plants. In early September 2026 the gas price was at its highest level in more than three years.

Negative prices around midday actually became less frequent in 2026. From January to September the day-ahead market had 388 hours with an average price below zero, against 538 in the same months of 2025. Only April and July had more than a year earlier. Midday became slightly more expensive, the evening much more so.

Quarter-hour prices make the peaks sharper

Since 1 October 2025 the day-ahead market has worked with 96 prices a day instead of 24. As a result, the price can vary considerably within a single hour. On a quarter-hour basis, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive moment of a day averaged €184.19 per MWh from January to September 2026, against €156.01 on an hourly basis. This year's lowest quarter-hour price was -€499.62 per MWh, on 1 May at around 1.30 pm, just above the floor of -€500 that applied then. For delivery from 29 May 2026 (auction of 28 May), the floor has been -€600 per MWh.

What does this mean for you?

• Shifting consumption from the evening to midday pays off more in 2026 than in 2025. Between 1 pm and 8 pm the average gap from April to September was €175 per MWh.
• If you have a dynamic or day-ahead-linked contract, look at quarter hours rather than hours. The price can differ sharply within one hour.
• If you have solar panels, you mostly feed in when power is worth least. Using your own power in those hours therefore counts for more.
• Storage or control that moves power from midday to the evening benefits from a wider gap. Work it out with your own consumption profile.

Sources: Energy-Charts (Fraunhofer ISE), data Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de, Dutch day-ahead market, retrieved 14 October 2026; NEMO Committee, 1 October 2025 and 7 May 2026; ACM, news items of 23 July 2025 and 11 September 2026.