Wholesale Electricity in Ireland

Electricity is traded on a single wholesale market for the Island of Ireland. Prices shown here are from the day-ahead market, as this is the most active. Each day-ahead auction closes at 11am and results are published soon after 11:45am. The timeframe for each auction runs from 11pm that evening until 11pm the following night. Electricity may also be traded on the same-day balancing market until almost real-time.

Units

Wholesale electricity is traded in blocks of 1 megawatt hour (MWh). 1 MWh equals 1,000 kilowatt-hours (the units on your electricity bill). All prices show here are in Euro.

Retail Electricity Prices

Prices that customers pay for electricity are generally higher than wholesale prices because they also include taxes, levies, a profit margin for electricity retailers, transmission charges, distribution charges, administration costs, etc.

There are more electricity pricing plans available now than ever before. So, we suggest using a smart electricity price comparison tool to accurately compare your options.

Average Price of Wholesale Electricity Technical Definition

There are two ways to think of the average wholesale electricity price. One is the simple arithmetic average that you’re probably familiar with. To calculate the arithmetic average price for a day, we simply add the price for each hour and then divide by 24. This’s the system used on Kilowatt.ie. It is most relevant for electricity users with a fairly steady electricity demand.

However, there is another “average electricity price”: the weighted average price per unit paid across all electricity users. This weighted average accounts for the use of more electricity at (expensive) peak times than at off-peak times