Until October 2018 Austria and Germany were one bidding zone with one price. They are not any more, and any Austrian series that crosses that date is two different things stitched together.
Written for developers integrating Austrian market data. Verified September 2026.
The DE-AT-LU bidding zone was divided on 1 October 2018. Since then Austria has its own price, its own zone code 10YAT-APG------L, and a capacity-limited border with Germany.
Historical series break at that date. Before it, the Austrian price is the German price. After it, the two diverge — sometimes by a lot, whenever the border constrains.
Backtests that span 2018 are measuring two markets. If your model learns on pre-split data, it learns German dynamics and calls them Austrian.
The DE-AT spread became a trade. It did not exist before; it is now one of the more watched spreads in central Europe.
Check the start date of every Austrian dataset you use. Some publishers backfilled the German price into the Austrian series for the pre-split period, which is defensible and also a trap if you do not know it was done.
APG: one TSO, one control area
Austrian Power Grid operates the single Austrian control area and publishes a transparency portal covering generation, load, balancing and cross-border capacity. Unlike Germany, there is no four-way split to reconcile — one operator, one set of numbers.
Generation and load, quarter-hourly, by source type.
Balancing — activated aFRR and mFRR volumes and prices, control area imbalance, reserve procurement results.
Cross-border — capacities and flows on the German, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Czech and Swiss borders, which for Austria is a long list.
Congestion and redispatch — relevant because Austria sits on the north-south transit corridor.
The portal offers both interactive views and machine access. The datasets are reachable programmatically, though the interface is less formalised than RTE or Terna — expect to pin URLs and validate responses rather than rely on a published contract.
Hydro, storage and transit
Pumped storage is the Austrian specialty
Austria has substantial pumped hydro in the Alps, and it is used to arbitrage against German wind. When Germany is long and cheap, water goes uphill in Austria; when the evening peak bites, it comes back down. This coupling is the reason the DE-AT border matters disproportionately to its size.
Run-of-river sets the floor
A large share of Austrian generation is run-of-river hydro, which follows snowmelt and rainfall rather than price. Spring melt reliably depresses Austrian prices, and any model without a hydrology input will read that as noise.
EXAA
The Austrian exchange runs an auction earlier in the day than the main day-ahead coupling, which makes its price a small leading indicator for the region. Volumes are modest, so treat it as information rather than liquidity.
Practical route
For most Austrian work, the practical stack is:
ENTSO-E for prices, load, generation and flows in a schema comparable with neighbouring zones — see our ENTSO-E API guide.
APG for balancing detail, control area imbalance and anything operational that ENTSO-E aggregates away.
The German sources as context, because Austrian prices are still largely a function of what Germany is doing — see our German market data guide.
One search caveat. "APG" is ambiguous online — it also refers to a Dutch pension fund and a listed American company, so general searches return noise. Use "Austrian Power Grid" or the zone code when you are looking for documentation.
Frequently asked questions
When did Austria separate from the German bidding zone?
1 October 2018. Before that date Austrian and German prices were identical; afterwards they diverge whenever the border capacity binds.
What is the Austrian bidding zone code?
10YAT-APG------L. Use it as the domain parameter in ENTSO-E queries.
Does APG have a public API?
APG publishes a transparency portal with machine-accessible datasets, though less formally documented than some European TSOs. Pin your URLs and validate responses.
Why do Austrian prices follow German ones?
Because the market is small, heavily interconnected and its pumped storage arbitrages directly against German wind. The border constraint is what lets the two prices separate.
What is EXAA?
The Austrian exchange. Its auction clears earlier than the main day-ahead coupling, which makes its price a modest leading indicator, though volumes are small.
Austrian data only makes sense next to German data and the border between them. We build cross-zone pipelines where the spread is a first-class series rather than an afterthought. Talk to us.