Austria's Worst Hour Beat The Dutch Average For A Whole Year

Austria's electricity was 85.6 per cent renewable last year.

The Netherlands managed 22.93 per cent.

Here is the bit that made me want to write this. Austria's worst single hour of the whole year was 45.92 per cent renewable.

So one country's worst hour beat another country's best year. Twice over.

Why One Number Is Not Enough

Every country tells you one figure. "We were X per cent renewable last year."

That figure is an average of 8,760 hours. And those hours are nothing like each other.

Germany says 63.38 per cent. True. But nine out of ten German hours land somewhere between 30.26 per cent and 89.48 per cent.

That is a gap of 59.22 points, hiding inside one number.

Germany spent 1,840 hours — 21.0 per cent of the year — running on a grid that was more than four-fifths renewable. The same year, it had hours down at 20.4 per cent.

Half A Year In The Dark

The Netherlands spent 4,407 hours at or below one fifth renewable.

There are 8,760 hours in a year. So that is 50.3 per cent of the time.

Half the year, more than four fifths of Dutch electricity was not renewable. Their annual figure does say 22.93 per cent, so this is not hidden exactly. But "we are a fifth renewable" and "half the year we are under a fifth" land very differently.

The Week The Wind Stopped

I looked for each country's worst seven days of the year. Not a calendar week — I slid a seven-day window across the whole year and took the worst one.

The Netherlands' worst week ran 5.71 per cent renewable. Fossil fuels filled 91.52 per cent of it.

Now here is the thing I did not expect.

4 of the 8 countries had their worst week start in January. And those weeks overlap each other.

The Dutch, Belgian, German and Austrian bad weeks are all the same weather sitting over all of them at once. Germany dropped to 33.42 per cent that week, from 63.38 for the year.

People often say the answer is more cables between countries. Borrow from your neighbour when your wind drops.

But if your neighbour's wind stopped on the same day, there is nothing to borrow.

France Did Something Different

France also had a bad renewable week — 18.68 per cent.

Fossil fuels covered 1.52 per cent of it.

Nuclear covered 79.79.

Same continent, same weather, completely different bill. I am not arguing for anything here — I am pointing at two rows in the same table.

Sometimes Electricity Costs Less Than Nothing

When there is more power being made than anyone wants, and the machines making it cannot easily stop, the price goes below zero. Generators pay to hand it over.

In 2025 this happened 3,917 times across 7 of the 8 markets.

Germany the most often: 724 times, 4.71 per cent of all its prices.

The deepest was Belgium at -462.33 euros a megawatt-hour. Somebody was paid nearly five hundred euros to take a megawatt-hour away.

And Then Italy

Italy never went below zero. Not once, all year.

My first thought was that Italy's grid must be different. It is not.

Italy's lowest price all year was exactly 0.0 euros. Exactly zero. Numbers do not land on exactly zero by chance.

That is a floor. Italy's market is not allowed to go below it.

Spain has a floor too, at -15.0. Belgium's is somewhere past -462.

So how far a price can fall is a rule somebody wrote, not a fact about wind.

Three Things I Cannot Tell You

These are shares of what each country made, not what it used. Power crosses borders constantly and I left trade out. A country buying clean power from next door looks dirtier here than it really is.

Rooftop solar is mostly missing. This data covers the big transmission network, and panels on houses connect lower down. Every solar number here is too low, and most too low in the sunniest places.

And wind farms that were paid to switch off do not appear at all. So during exactly the cheap hours I described, there was more renewable power available than these figures show.