Average electricity price per month
What did electricity cost on the market in a given month? Below are the monthly averages of the bare day-ahead price for the Netherlands, from January 2015 up to the month now running. The figures update every day, so you can also see how this month compares with the same month last year.
No obligation: you go to the provider’s website and decide yourself. Advertisement: this page contains sponsored links.
The short version
The amounts on this page are the bare market price: the average of every quarter-hour price on the day-ahead exchange that month, in cents per kilowatt hour. Your bill adds your supplier mark-up, energy tax and VAT on top. The monthly average is useful for comparing months and years. If you want to know what a dynamic contract is worth to you, look at the spread per day column instead: that is the amount you can capture by shifting consumption.
27.0 cents per kWh
That is the average bare electricity price on the day-ahead market in November 2026, counted over the days recorded so far. Compared with November 2025 that is about 188 percent higher. The monthly average that month was 9.4 cents.
This is the wholesale price, before energy tax, VAT, network charges and your supplier mark-up. Updated on november 9, 2026.
- Series143 monthsJanuary 2015 through November 2026
- Average across the whole series8.1 centsper kWh, bare market price
- Most expensive month44.7 centsAugust 2022
- Cheapest month1.8 centsMay 2020
- Months with negative hours66 of 143hours when the market price dropped below zero
The chart shows the last five years. The table below holds the whole series, month by month.
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 10.8 | 9.3 | 9.9 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 11.0 | 10.6 | 12.5 | 15.2 | 17.2 | 27.0 | 12.9 | |
| 2025 | 11.7 | 12.6 | 9.2 | 7.5 | 6.4 | 6.8 | 8.8 | 7.5 | 7.8 | 8.2 | 9.4 | 8.8 | 8.7 |
| 2024 | 7.8 | 6.4 | 6.3 | 5.8 | 6.6 | 6.8 | 6.5 | 7.7 | 7.8 | 8.8 | 11.4 | 10.8 | 7.7 |
| 2023 | 12.6 | 13.5 | 10.5 | 9.9 | 7.8 | 9.2 | 7.2 | 9.1 | 9.9 | 9.0 | 9.4 | 7.3 | 9.6 |
| 2022 | 18.9 | 16.8 | 26.1 | 19.5 | 18.1 | 21.1 | 30.7 | 44.7 | 34.2 | 15.5 | 17.9 | 25.9 | 24.1 |
| 2021 | 5.4 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.4 | 5.6 | 7.7 | 8.3 | 8.7 | 13.6 | 16.4 | 18.6 | 23.8 | 10.3 |
| 2020 | 3.7 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 2.6 | 2.9 | 3.4 | 4.3 | 3.7 | 4.1 | 4.8 | 3.2 |
| 2019 | 5.8 | 4.7 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.6 | 4.0 | 3.7 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 3.7 | 4.1 |
| 2018 | 3.9 | 4.5 | 5.2 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 5.1 | 5.3 | 5.8 | 6.3 | 6.0 | 6.2 | 6.0 | 5.2 |
| 2017 | 5.1 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 3.9 |
| 2016 | 3.2 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 2.7 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 2.8 | 3.3 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 3.2 |
| 2015 | 4.1 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 3.7 | 3.9 | 4.2 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 3.4 | 4.0 |
All amounts in cents per kilowatt hour, averaged over every hour of the month. The last column is the average across that year’s months. The figure with an asterisk is the month now running and will keep moving until the month is over.
The last twelve months in detail
| Month | Average | Lowest hour | Highest hour | Spread per day | Hours below zero |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2026 | 27.0 | 16.1 | 62.4 | 17.9 | 0 |
| October 2026 | 17.2 | -0.5 | 55.5 | 18.6 | 16 |
| September 2026 | 15.2 | -1.5 | 61.7 | 24.2 | 28 |
| August 2026 | 12.5 | -1.5 | 48.7 | 20.1 | 58 |
| July 2026 | 10.6 | -2.5 | 33.9 | 18.2 | 59 |
| June 2026 | 11.0 | -5.3 | 90.3 | 25.6 | 48 |
| May 2026 | 9.5 | -50.0 | 44.6 | 20.2 | 69 |
| April 2026 | 8.5 | -48.0 | 31.8 | 21.8 | 112 |
| March 2026 | 9.9 | -1.8 | 45.0 | 18.6 | 19 |
| February 2026 | 9.3 | 0.0 | 23.3 | 8.1 | 1 |
| January 2026 | 10.8 | 0.2 | 28.6 | 8.5 | 0 |
| December 2025 | 8.8 | 0.2 | 29.9 | 7.2 | 0 |
The lowest and highest hour are the extremes that occurred in that month. Spread per day is the average gap between the cheapest and the most expensive hour within a day: that number says how much there was to gain by shifting consumption. Hours below zero are the hours with a negative market price.
From market price to what you actually pay
The market price is only part of your price per kilowatt hour. Suppose the monthly average comes out at 10 cents; the build-up then looks roughly like this. The energy tax is the 2026 rate.
| Component | Cents per kWh | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bare market price | 10.00 | The figure from the tables above, changing every quarter hour |
| Supplier mark-up | 1.00 to 3.00 | What your supplier charges on top; this is what you can compare on |
| Energy tax | 9.16 | A flat rate per kWh, excluding VAT |
| VAT, 21 percent | 4.23 | Charged on the total of the rows above |
| Your price per kWh | 24.39 to 26.81 | Depending on your supplier mark-up |
On top of that come fixed costs that have nothing to do with how much you use: network charges and the standing supply charge. The energy tax rebate of 628.96 euro per year per electricity connection is then deducted. None of those move with the market price, so you can leave them out when comparing one month with another.
Want to know how that exchange price comes about? We explain it in how energy prices are set.
Why the monthly average is not your bill
On a dynamic contract you do not pay the monthly average. You pay per quarter hour, and your consumption is spread unevenly across the day. Two households in the same month, using exactly the same number of kilowatt hours, can differ by tens of euros because one consumes mostly during the evening peak and the other mostly at night.
That is why the monthly average sits next to the spread per day here. The average says how expensive the market was. The spread says how much room there was to do something about it.
The spread within the day is where the money is
The spread per day column holds the average gap between the cheapest and the most expensive hour within a single day. That number has grown noticeably in recent years: more solar and wind means more hours at very low prices, while the evening peak swings higher.
For a household with a charge point, a home battery or a heat pump, that is the figure that counts. Charge your car during the three cheapest hours instead of the moment you get home and you capture a large part of that gap. See smart EV charging and the home battery guide.
The pattern through the year
The monthly table shows a pattern that repeats in almost every year.
- Winter, December through February. Little sun, high demand for heating and light. These are almost always the most expensive months, with the highest hourly prices around seven and eight in the evening.
- Spring, April and May. Plenty of sun, demand still low. These are the months with the lowest averages and the most hours below zero, especially around midday at weekends.
- Summer, June through August. Low averages during the day, but the largest spread within the day: nearly free at midday, expensive in the evening.
- Autumn, October and November. The sun fades, demand climbs. Averages rise and the hours below zero disappear.
Those seasons are also why your advance payment on a dynamic contract can drift. The advance payment on a dynamic contract explains how to handle that.
Hours below zero: how often, and what it means
The last column of the detail table shows how many hours the market price fell below zero that month. That happens when there is more solar and wind on the grid than there is demand. Since 2023 it has occurred every spring and every summer, in some months for dozens of hours.
Be careful what a negative market price means for you. On the electricity you consume you still pay energy tax, and VAT on the total. With the 2026 rate, the bare market price has to drop to roughly minus eleven cents per kilowatt hour before a consumed kilowatt hour costs you nothing on balance. Negative prices are therefore very cheap hours, not hours in which you are paid to consume.
If you feed power back from solar panels it works the other way round: at a negative price many contracts charge you for what you push onto the grid. See the feed-in tariff.
How to use these figures
- Check your bill. Compare the monthly average above with the average purchase price on your annual statement. Well above it means you consume mostly in expensive hours.
- Weigh fixed against dynamic. Put a fixed-contract offer next to the monthly averages of recent years, plus the mark-up and the taxes. See dynamic, fixed or variable.
- Work out a home battery. Use the spread per day, not the monthly average. That figure is the gross return per full cycle, before tax effects and losses.
- Look ahead. Tomorrow and the days after are on electricity price tomorrow. And from 2029 the grid tariff moves with the clock too: see time-of-use grid tariffs.
Where the figures come from, and how current they are
The source is the day-ahead market for bidding zone Netherlands, retrieved through the API of energy-charts.info by Fraunhofer ISE, which passes on data from Bundesnetzagentur and SMARD.de under the CC BY 4.0 licence. A script on this site collects the new intervals every day and recalculates the monthly aggregates, so the month now running keeps moving until it is over.
Until October 2025 the market set one price per hour. Since then it is one price per quarter hour. In the calculation every price point is weighted by the length of its own interval, so averages stay comparable across the whole series.
Want to use the figures yourself? They are available in machine-readable form at this JSON feed. Please credit the source and the licence, and a link back to this page is appreciated.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average electricity price per kWh?
The monthly average of the bare market price is at the top of this page and updates daily. What you pay yourself is higher: add your supplier mark-up and 9.16 cents of energy tax to the market price, then add 21 percent VAT. How prices are set →
Why does my bill differ from the monthly average?
Because a dynamic contract settles per quarter hour and your consumption is spread unevenly across the day. Consume mostly during the evening peak and you pay more than the average; consume mostly at night or around midday and you pay less. Pros and cons of dynamic →
Which month is usually the cheapest?
April and May come out cheapest most often: plenty of sun and demand still low. December, January and February are almost always the most expensive. Read next: How a dynamic contract works →
Do I get paid when the electricity price is negative?
For power you consume, almost never. Energy tax and VAT keep running, so the bare market price has to drop to roughly minus eleven cents per kWh before a consumed kilowatt hour costs you nothing on balance. They are very cheap hours rather than free ones. Pros and cons of dynamic →
How often are these monthly averages updated?
Every day. An automated task collects the new market prices and recalculates the month now running. The date of the last update is shown in the block at the top. How prices are set →
May I reuse these figures?
Yes. The underlying data is published under CC BY 4.0 by Bundesnetzagentur and SMARD.de, via energy-charts.info by Fraunhofer ISE. Credit that source and the licence, and preferably link back to this page as well. Read next: How a dynamic contract works →
Ready to save?
- You open the provider’s website.
- You see the current prices and terms yourself.
- You decide. There is no obligation.