The wind arrives on Thursday, mostly after dark: 479 GWh forecast, three times Wednesday's

On Wednesday evening we told you that Thursday’s electricity was cheap and that nobody yet knew why. The grid’s own numbers have now arrived. SMARD’s generation forecast for Thursday 12 November puts onshore wind at about 349.2 GWh and offshore wind at about 130.2 GWh¹. Desk arithmetic: that is about 479.4 GWh of wind, against about 148.1 GWh forecast for Wednesday, or roughly 3.2 times as much¹.

A day that builds. The wind does not arrive all at once. In the hour from midnight, the forecast for onshore and offshore together is about 5,600 MWh; by 08:00 it is about 13,600 MWh; by 17:00 about 28,900 MWh; and in the last hour of the day, from 23:00, about 35,100 MWh¹. Solar adds a modest 50.0 GWh over the day, almost all of it between 09:00 and 15:00¹.

The auction read the forecast. Thursday’s day-ahead price averages €199.05 per megawatt hour². Its dearest hour is 08:00 at €244.82, when the wind forecast is still under half its evening level; its cheapest is 23:00 at €140.25, when the wind is strongest^1,2. Desk arithmetic: the six hours from 18:00, each with more than 30,000 MWh of wind forecast, average about €182.91; the four morning hours from 07:00 average about €235.33^1,2. The early hours are cheap too, at about €199.14 on average from midnight to 06:00, but that is the country asleep, not the wind².

What this is not. It is not a verdict on the energy transition, for or against. It is one blustery Thursday, and Wednesday showed the opposite: little wind, and a teatime hour at €447.65². The useful point is plainer. A forecast published by the regulator, an auction that prices it, and a chart anyone can check: that is the dull machinery working.

For you. On a dynamic tariff, Thursday’s best window is late: from 21:00 the price is between €140.25 and €165.39². That is when the dishwasher, the washing machine and the car will cost least. On a fixed tariff, nothing changes this month. Nothing here is investment advice.