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Public discussion surface

Market Coordination

A public discussion surface that starts from day-ahead shape, compares accepted reserve stacks across the four FRR legs, and then asks what intervention would hide rather than solve.

The useful discussion is no longer whether prices look uncomfortable. It is which side of flexibility is cheap, which side is expensive, and what flattening the day-ahead curve would hide.

Requested 14 Mar 2026Observed 14 Mar 2026Tight system regimeUpdated 14 Mar 2026, 10:25
Open day-ahead prices translated into same-day swap products. · Open-data benchmark reconstruction of implied day-ahead price formation. · Regelleistung anonymous reserve publications across aFRR+/-, mFRR+/-, treated as accepted-side stacks. · SPARX preview for settlement dislocation backdrop. · Regime label: Tight system regime.
Date explorer
Observed lag T-0
Current read
Shape and corrective flexibility are both demanding attention
If politics attacks the visible price first, reserve and balancing still have to absorb the mismatch. The costs do not vanish; they change channel.
Day-ahead spread
EUR 174.8/MWh
5 hour(s) printed below zero, so the public discussion should include surplus absorption as well as scarcity.
1-hour swap
EUR 174.8/MWh
1-hour swap settles at EUR 174.8/MW-day. This is the cleanest public translation of shape into storage language.
Reconstruction gap
EUR 41.7/MWh
The benchmark stack is directionally aligned
Cheapest FRR leg
mFRR+ · EUR 1.5/MW/h
3,114 MW awarded across visible blocks. Cheap accepted capacity still needs an economic explanation.
Most expensive FRR leg
aFRR- · EUR 13.0/MW/h
13,440 MW awarded across visible blocks. This is where corrective flexibility is visibly hardest to source.
Story frame

How to discuss the day

The page works in sequence: first read the day-ahead curve, then compare the four FRR legs, and only then argue about intervention.

1. Start with shape, not the daily average
stressed
1-hour swap prints EUR 174.8/MWh while the daily spread reaches EUR 174.8/MWh.

Peak value concentrates around 19:00 while the cheapest hour sits around 11:00. That is a coordination story before it is a politics story.

2. Then ask which side of flexibility is cheap
active
mFRR+ clears far below aFRR- on the same day.

That split is the useful public clue. It suggests where flexibility had low opportunity cost and where the system had to pay up for correction.

3. Only then talk about intervention
stressed
SPARX prints 254.5 EUR/MWh; balancing says The control layer is active on both sides, but positive-side aFRR is doing materially more work.

This is where simple price suppression arguments become weakest. Later layers are already showing that the system would still have to pay for the mismatch somewhere.

DA shape translation

Swap-style view of the same day

This is the day-ahead curve translated into storage language. The daily swap snapshot makes hourly shape legible without pretending we have the auction curve.

1-hour swap
EUR 174.8/MWh
High EUR 165.8/MWh · Low EUR -9.0/MWh
EUR 174.8/MW-day floating daily payoff
Single best discharge hour against the single cheapest charging hour.
2-hour swap
EUR 172.3/MWh
High EUR 163.6/MWh · Low EUR -8.7/MWh
EUR 344.6/MW-day floating daily payoff
A broader two-hour read on the same day-ahead curve shape.
4-hour swap
EUR 160.0/MWh
High EUR 153.7/MWh · Low EUR -6.2/MWh
EUR 639.8/MW-day floating daily payoff
Longer storage window using the top four versus bottom four hours.
FRR comparison

Accepted-side reserve split

The comparison below is about asymmetry across the four FRR legs. The question is not whether one price is high in isolation, but which side of corrective flexibility was cheap or expensive on the same day.

Visibility note
Public reserve data shows the accepted side, not the full tail

Regelleistung publishes anonymous offers only up to the awarded amount. That lets us compare where aFRR+/- and mFRR+/- cleared, but it does not reveal the rejected tail or full tender depth.

aFRR+
13,648 MW awarded
active
EUR 12.0/MW/h
This is the accepted-side price of keeping corrective upward flexibility ready when the day-ahead plan proves too optimistic.
aFRR-
13,440 MW awarded
active
EUR 13.0/MW/h
Cheaper downward accepted capacity is consistent with surplus-facing energy hours and low opportunity cost for absorption.
mFRR+
3,114 MW awarded
quiet
EUR 1.5/MW/h
Cheap mFRR capacity can still be rational when providers treat it as optional insurance and expect the economics to sit in activation or portfolio optionality.
mFRR-
2,139 MW awarded
quiet
EUR 5.5/MW/h
Cheaper downward accepted capacity is consistent with surplus-facing energy hours and low opportunity cost for absorption.
Reserve to energy bridge

Focus cases for discussion

These are not participant attributions. They are mechanism-first readings of why a reserve leg might clear cheaply or expensively given the same day’s energy shape.

mFRR+

Cheap upward reservation is still economically plausible

Among the four FRR legs, mFRR+ is the cheapest accepted side on the day. The point is not to identify the winner. It is to ask why this side of flexibility could clear this cheaply.
Average leg: EUR 1.5/MW/h
Focus block: 00:00 - 04:00 · EUR 0.1/MW/h
The energy-side backdrop helps, but mFRR capacity is also shaped by the fact that it behaves more like optional insurance than continuous control.
Visibility caveat: The public file ends almost exactly at the awarded amount. That does not prove scarcity; it mostly reflects the awarded-side truncation of the anonymous data.
Cheap reservation can still be rational on the upward side
low
A provider can bid low capacity prices to secure a reservation payment while still valuing the separate activation-energy leg, especially if expected activation is limited or if the asset is already physically online.
mFRR capacity can behave like insurance optionality
medium
mFRR is farther from continuous control than aFRR, so some providers may accept very low capacity prices for the option of clearing while expecting relatively infrequent activation.
aFRR-

Downward correction is where surplus stops being cheap

This leg carries the highest accepted-side price across the four FRR legs. Even without the rejected tail, the visible margin is expensive enough to mark where corrective flexibility is hardest to source.
Average leg: EUR 13.0/MW/h
Focus block: 12:00 - 16:00 · EUR 35.4/MW/h
This block sits in a surplus-facing part of the energy curve, so downward reserve can clear cheaply without obviously giving up rich energy-market alternatives.
Visibility caveat: The public file ends almost exactly at the awarded amount. That does not prove scarcity; it mostly reflects the awarded-side truncation of the anonymous data.
Surplus absorption had low opportunity cost
medium
In low-price or solar-heavy hours, storage, flexible load, or downward-flexible generation can offer negative reserve cheaply because being available to absorb surplus does not crowd out especially attractive energy-market revenue.
Weather-synchronised portfolios can cheapen one reserve side
low
Renewable-linked portfolios and batteries may naturally prefer one side of the reserve market in weather-driven blocks, pushing the accepted margin lower without implying a general abundance of all flexibility.
Discussion prompts

Questions worth debating in public

Why can low reserve capacity bids still be rational?
Signal: mFRR+ clears at EUR 1.5/MW/h.
Interpretation: Low capacity does not mean providers are irrational. In aFRR and mFRR, capacity and energy economics are linked, so cheap reservation can still make sense for already-online units, storage, or portfolios expecting value in activation.
Caution: The public anonymous file does not identify technologies or participants, so this is explanation by mechanism, not attribution.
Why does the auction rule matter without replacing the merit order?
Signal: FCR capacity is pay-as-cleared, while aFRR and mFRR capacity are pay-as-bid on current Regelleistung rules.
Interpretation: This is exactly why pricing-rule debates and merit-order debates should be separated. Pay-as-cleared versus pay-as-bid changes bidding strategy and rent distribution, but the underlying scarcity ordering and marginal activation logic still matter.
Caution: That is also why the FRR comparison on this page focuses on the four aFRR/mFRR legs and treats FCR as adjacent context rather than a directly comparable line item.
Why do some producers or portfolios lean into very low prices?
Signal: The cheapest hour reaches EUR -9.0/MWh.
Interpretation: Very low or negative day-ahead prices are consistent with must-run constraints, CHP heat obligations, ramping costs, subsidy preservation, or the simple fact that storage and export capacity were not enough to absorb surplus.
Caution: The public benchmark explains direction, not the exact auction book. Block bids, hydro, outages, and coupling constraints still sit outside the simplified reconstruction.
What does the day-ahead swap add to the discussion?
Signal: 1-hour swap pays EUR 174.8/MW-day.
Interpretation: It converts hourly curve shape into a contract-like object. That is useful because it shows why batteries, flexible load, and storage-linked portfolios read the day differently from someone staring only at the daily average.
Caution: This page shows realized same-day shape, not a forward quote or a complete valuation surface for structured products.
What would price suppression actually hide?
Signal: SPARX 254.5 EUR/MWh with The control layer is active on both sides, but positive-side aFRR is doing materially more work.
Interpretation: Flattening the energy signal can make the politics look cleaner while reserve procurement, activation, redispatch, or balancing correction still carry the physical mismatch. The bill often moves rather than disappears.
Caution: That does not mean every intervention is wrong. It means the burden of proof is to show which bottleneck is being fixed, not only which price is being muted.
Structural backdrop

Slower constraints behind the signal

North-south split remains visible
Top operational wind state is Niedersachsen at 14.3 GW, while top solar state is Bayern at 28.7 GW.
Storage remains thin in exposed states
Ausschließliche Wirtschaftszone sits near the bottom of the storage buffer ranking at 0.0% of operational solar + wind net capacity.
Redispatch still proves the bottleneck
Renewable negative redispatch reached 0.6 TWh over the rolling 730-day window. That same window contains 5.9 TWh of total negative redispatch.
Method

What sits behind the read

  • The day-ahead side combines actual open hourly prices with the public reconstruction benchmark. The benchmark is an implied merit-order model, not the hidden EPEX auction curve.
  • The swap section computes same-day 1-hour, 2-hour, and 4-hour high-low products directly from the observed day-ahead hourly series.
  • The reserve section compares actual anonymous Regelleistung publications for aFRR+/-, mFRR+/-. These are treated as accepted-side stacks only, because the rejected tail is not public.
  • FCR is intentionally left outside the main four-leg comparison here because it is a symmetric pay-as-cleared capacity auction, whereas aFRR and mFRR capacity are pay-as-bid. That pricing-rule distinction is part of the story, but not the whole merit-order question.
  • Reserve-to-energy bridge notes are intentionally speculative. They are meant to frame mechanisms behind low accepted bids, not to identify who bid what.
Caveats

Official Regelleistung publication truncates the anonymous reserve book at the awarded amount, so apparent thinness cannot be read as full-book scarcity.

Cheap reserve capacity does not imply cheap activation or generally abundant flexibility; aFRR and mFRR economics span both capacity and energy decisions.

Changing settlement rules can alter bid shading and visible price outcomes without eliminating the physical coordination problem that merit-order debates are really about.

Negative or low day-ahead prices can emerge for several reasons at once: inflexibility, CHP constraints, subsidy incentives, exports, storage saturation, and order-book structure.

This page is built for discussion support. It makes the mechanisms more legible, but it does not replace licensed auction-book data or participant-level analysis.

Next stops

Go deeper from here

The Curves Behind the Price of Power
Background, regulatory backdrop, and a guided route through the live surfaces.
Reserve Merit Order
Accepted-side reserve stacks and block-level hypotheses.
DA Reconstruction
Open-data benchmark for implied day-ahead price formation.
DA Swap
Subscriber framework for realized day-ahead shape beyond the public daily snapshot.
Balancing
Control-layer read on activation, escalation, and TSO burden.