Elpris

The price right now — and what a wash costs

At the top are the hour you are in and what it costs per kWh — not the spot price, but the total including grid tariff, duties and VAT. Next to it are the following two hours with an arrow, so you can see whether it is worth waiting an hour before running the dishwasher.

Below that, the cost per run instead of per kWh: what it costs to run a washing machine, a dishwasher, a tumble dryer or charge the car right now. The figures use ordinary consumption values, and the small green label under each appliance shows the cheapest time among the prices that are known — on Android as the price at that time, on iPhone as what you save by waiting. For the car it is the cheapest continuous charging window, not a single hour.

Your grid company and price area sit in the header, because both change the price: N1 in DK1 is not the same as Cerius in DK2. And if new prices cannot be fetched, the app says so instead of showing empty fields — for example that it is showing the prices it fetched yesterday.

• Total price per kWh, not the spot price
• The next two hours with a direction arrow
• Washing, dishes, drying and car charging converted into kroner
• Grid company and price area shown at the top of the screen

The day in colour — and every hour opened up

Today and tomorrow appear as two charts with one bar per hour, coloured green, yellow and red according to whether the hour is cheap, medium or expensive for that day. Under each chart are the day's cheapest hour, the average and the most expensive, with times.

Tomorrow's prices arrive around 13:00, when the Nordic power exchange has settled them. Until then the app does not invent numbers for hours nobody knows yet: tomorrow's card says the prices are not ready and has a shortcut to the forecast tab, where there is an estimate.

Tap a bar and it reports its own hour: time and price. Tap again and the whole calculation unfolds.

At the bottom is Denmark's electricity production right now — how much of consumption is covered by wind and solar, and how many megawatts each is delivering. Plenty of wind and sun is usually what makes the cheap hours.

The arithmetic behind the price

The second tap shows the hour's price split into what it is made of: duties, spot price and VAT, as a bar you can read at a glance. Unfold the duties and they are listed individually — Energinet's transmission and system tariffs, the grid tariff and the electricity duty, each with its own amount. Unfold the spot price and you see the hour's four quarter-hour prices; the hourly price is their average.

Of the duties, the grid tariff is the one that varies most, and it is not an average: the app knows your grid company's tariff sheet hour by hour — for most companies with low, high and peak load — and which period of the year it applies to. The tariff sheets are kept in a file on our own server, copied from the grid companies' own price lists, and at most companies the daytime and evening hours cost more in winter than in summer. The app uses the rate that applies to each hour in the chart.

The arrows at the top of the panel step through the day hour by hour, so you can follow how the composition changes. The spot price swings freely. The electricity duty and Energinet's tariffs are fixed, and the grid tariff only moves between a few set levels — and that is exactly why a doubling of the spot price rarely doubles the bill.

Your grid company — not your electricity supplier

It is one of the most common misunderstandings on a Danish electricity bill: the grid company is not the supplier. You choose your supplier and can switch; the grid company owns the cables in the ground at your address, and that you cannot choose. The grid company sets the grid tariff — and it can be several times higher late in the afternoon than at night.

So the app asks only one thing: who owns the cables where you live. Either it finds out from your approximate location, or you pick from the list. The lookup happens in the Danish Energy Agency's map of the grid companies' areas, which ships with the app, and your coordinates stay on the phone. After that the tariff is right, and the total is yours rather than a national average.

In settings the whole setup is laid out in full: the three fixed duties and VAT can be read, and both the grid company and any spot-price markup from your supplier can be changed. If you would rather see the raw spot price, switch off 'Vis afgifter og moms' (show duties and VAT) and the app shows that instead.

• The grid company is looked up on the phone or picked manually
• A spot-price markup from your own supplier can be entered
• Duties and VAT can be switched off if you prefer the raw spot price
• Price area DK1 or DK2 follows from the grid company

A forecast for the days nobody knows yet

The power exchange only sets prices one day ahead. If you want to plan further ahead — when to charge the car, when to let the heat pump run — the numbers do not exist.

The forecast tab gives an estimate for up to six days ahead, hour by hour, in the same coloured chart as the first tab — 'Lige nu' (right now) on Android, 'Priser' (prices) on iPhone — and with your grid tariff, duties and VAT added. The forecast is calculated on our own server four times a day. It is based on electricity prices in Denmark and its neighbours — Sweden, Norway and Germany — and on the weather forecast for wind, sun and temperature from the US weather service NOAA. Wind in the North Sea pushes the price down; calm, cold weather pushes it up.

The model has learned from prices and weather forecasts since 2024, is retrained every month and keeps correcting for its own errors. The app used to calculate the forecast on the phone; now the calculation lives in one place, where it can be measured and improved.

Tap a bar twice and the price is split up as on the first tab — only the spot price is an estimate, the rest are the known rates for the day. If the weather forecast is missing, the app uses an average of the last four weeks' prices and says so. If the price forecast cannot be fetched, the app shows the last one it fetched, as long as it is less than a day old. If it is older, or there is none, the app shows a message instead of a guess; today's and tomorrow's actual prices are not affected.

The app calls it what it is: indicative. The forecast is best at predicting when in the day power is cheap or expensive, and weaker at predicting how high the most expensive hours go. The explanation is behind ⓘ on every day card. There is no account, and nothing about your consumption is sent: the app fetches one file for your price area.

The forecast measures itself

Near the bottom of the tab is the card 'Hvor godt rammer prognosen?' (how accurate is the forecast?). Every day the forecast is compared with the actual prices, and the app shows the average distance 1 day, 2–3 days and 4–6 days ahead, in øre per kWh (100 øre = 1 krone). A number only appears after 14 days of measurement. Until 28 days have been measured, the app calls the numbers preliminary; from then on they always cover the last 28 days.

The chart shows the last seven days: the actual price as a grey staircase and the previous day's forecast as a blue line. Tap the chart and a bubble shows the forecast, the actual price and the deviation for that hour. Below the chart: how much of the possible saving you would have got by following the forecast's three cheapest hours in a row, on how many days it was closer than a simple average of the last four weeks, and which day was hardest.

The yardstick does not flatter: the four-week average is shown alongside, so you can see what the forecast actually adds. In the screenshot, on 14 of 16 days the forecast was closer to the actual price than the average was, but following the average would have captured slightly more of the possible saving from the three cheapest hours in a row: 98% against the forecast's 95%.

Below that is 'Sådan beregnes priserne' (how the prices are calculated): the formula and the three things the calculation rests on — the prices, the weather forecast and the calendar with time of day, weekday, season and Danish public holidays.

What the power from your solar panels is worth

Elsalg (selling power) is a tab for anyone with solar panels. It shows what you get for 1 kWh you send out onto the grid — hour by hour today and tomorrow, and as an estimate for the days after. At the top are the selling price right now and the next two hours, and here an upward arrow is good news.

The selling price is not the spot price. The supplier deducts a fee, Energinet and the grid company each charge for taking the power in, and most suppliers add VAT on the last two. That is why the selling price can turn negative when the spot price is low, and then it costs money to send power out. The bars are green above the day's average, yellow below and red when you pay — and the app says it in words, for example 'I dag kl. 12–15 koster det at sende strøm ud på nettet' (today 12:00–15:00 it costs money to send power out onto the grid).

The most important line is right under the price: what you save by using the power yourself. Power you use at the very moment the panels produce it saves you the whole purchase price — grid tariff, duties and VAT included. That is almost always worth more than selling it; in the screenshot 1.61 kr against 0.85 kr per kWh.

Tap a bar twice and the selling price is split up: the spot price with the hour's four quarter-hour prices, the fees one by one, and what is left.

Your own fees — and when selling costs money

The first time you open the tab, the app asks for the fees. The supplier's fee is in your sales agreement and is typically 0–6 øre per kWh; the app suggests 2.5 øre. The app already knows Energinet's two fees and your grid company's feed-in tariff — we looked up the grid companies' rates on their own websites. For two small grid companies we found no rate, and there the app says 'usikker sats' (uncertain rate). If you have no solar panels, one button hides the tab.

The calculation is at the bottom of the tab, with your own numbers: the spot price without VAT, minus the supplier's fee, minus Energinet's fees, minus the grid company's — and the spot price at which selling breaks even. For N1 customers that is 5.18 øre with the suggested fees; depending on the grid company the threshold lies between just under 4 and just under 12 øre.

Everything can be switched on and off under Settings → Solceller (solar panels), including VAT on the fees, because not every supplier deducts it. If your installation is on the old scheme where Vindstød pays you the full spot price, switch off 'Træk gebyrer fra' (deduct fees). Private sales of electricity carry no VAT.

Between the charts and the calculation is the forecast as a selling price for the coming days. It is drawn in muted colours, so an estimate does not look like a real price.

When the power is cut

Under Afbrydelser (outages) are the power cuts your grid company reports: those happening now, planned work up to a month ahead, and those that ended in the last 24 hours. If you let the app use your approximate location, the tab by default shows only those within 5 km of your home, nearest first, with distance, number of households and when the power is expected back. Otherwise it shows the grid company's whole area and says so. If an outage is under way, a red number appears on the tab; planned work does not count.

Tap an outage and it opens up: when it starts, when the power is expected back, how many households are affected, which streets the grid company has reported, and what the company itself writes about the cause. From there you can call the grid company and, for most companies, open its own status page, where you can look up your address. 'Vis i Kort' (show in Maps) opens the phone's map app on the first of the affected streets.

The information comes from the grid companies via Green Power Denmark, and the app itself says that it cannot see whether your particular address is affected. The large grid companies report outages, but not all the small ones do, and for a company that does not report, the tab simply says 'Ingen registrerede afbrydelser i dit område' (no registered outages in your area). Radius and Cerius report outages but do not publish planned work.

Your location is used only on the phone, rounded to about 100 metres. When the list is fetched, only the grid company is sent — not your address. If you report a damaged cable cabinet, you can choose to put your exact position in the email yourself.

The whole area, a heads-up the evening before and a damaged cable cabinet

With 'Hele området' (whole area) the tab shows everything from your grid company, and with more than ten outages the pins on the map turn into dots. With 'Skift' (switch) you can look at another company's area; tariffs and prices still follow your own company.

Outage alerts are off until you say yes. On Android a notification then arrives the evening before planned work near you — or two hours before, if the work is the same day — so you have time to do the washing and charge up. The Android app also checks in the background and can report an outage that has just started.

The tile 'Defekt kabelskab?' (damaged cable cabinet?) leads to a page that says what to do. If the door is open, the front is missing or the cabinet has been hit, the app tells you to call the grid company straight away — the companies themselves call that urgent. If it is standing in water, the app drafts an email to the grid company with a photo, the location and what is wrong, where the company accepts email. The app sends nothing by itself; you are the one who presses Send.

Alerts before the cheap hour, not after

A price you discover the next day is useless. So the notifications arrive before the hour begins — by default a quarter of an hour ahead on Android and half an hour on iPhone, and it can be changed.

There are alerts for the day's most and least expensive hour, ahead of an upcoming price rise, and — for anyone charging an electric car — for the best continuous charging window: the app finds the consecutive hours that are cheapest overall and tells you before they start. On top of that, a daily overview in the morning, an alert when tomorrow's prices are ready, and alerts about power cuts in your area.

Day and night are set separately, so you can accept a 21:00 reminder about the cheapest hour of the night without being woken at 03:00.

Chart or list, light or dark

The chart is quick to read, the list is precise. The switch is in settings, and the list shows every hour with its own bar and its own amount, with the current hour highlighted. The choice applies to the forecast too.

On Android the theme follows the phone unless you switch off 'Automatisk tema' (automatic theme), in which case the app is always light. On iPhone it always follows the phone. And on the home screen the app can sit as a widget: a small one with the hour's price in colour, and a larger one with the price, the coming hours and the cheapest hour. On iPhone it can also go on the lock screen, and it knows the whole day's prices and moves on to the next hour by itself through the night, without the app running; on Android it updates itself every hour.