Market Report 2026

Negative prices: progress in PV curtailment

Volatility in the electricity market continues to increase: the expansion of renewable energies means that the number of hours with extreme prices continues to rise, but in 2025 the market did not reach such high extremes as in previous years.

This is according to the Amprion Market Report 2026. The report states that, following the experience with the Hellbrise, new flexibilities for curtailing PV systems at negative prices were successfully introduced in 2025 in collaboration with direct marketers. This has at least relieved the situation. The 2025 Market Report had addressed the challenge that around half of German PV producers received fixed feed-in tariffs that are not dependent on market prices and offer no incentive to reduce their production in the event of negative prices. The 2026 market report shows that curtailment of directly marketed PV systems was also low. This can lead to an oversupply of electricity, which in turn pushes prices down. In 2025, the flexibility potential mentioned above was leveraged in direct marketing, while small PV systems remain inflexible.

The tenor of the new report is that the German electricity market works because it is integrated into the European electricity market and can take advantage of all the flexibility it offers. However, inflexibilities also have an impact in that neighbouring countries naturally also draw on German flexibility.

Flexibility remains the big topic

Meanwhile, a surprising trend is emerging in redispatch: despite the ongoing expansion of renewables, redispatch requirements fell in 2025. The reason for this is low wind feed-in. Despite this finding, flexibility remains a key issue in view of the increasing feed-in from volatile sources. However, in order to better integrate these sources, transmission system operators need new approaches to respond to market situations.

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