The Italian market has six price zones, a national average price that nobody generates at, and two publishers that split the data between them. None of it is hard once the vocabulary clicks.
Written for developers integrating Italian market data. Verified September 2026.
Terna publishes its operational series through the Download Center and the transparency API. The Download Center is the manual route — pick a series, pick a period, get a spreadsheet. The API is the one to automate against.
Developer portal with registration and client credentials, plus a download centre for bulk files.
GME market operator
Day-ahead (MGP), intraday (MI) and ancillary services (MSD) results, zonal prices, PUN, volumes, supply and demand curves.
Public downloads in XML and Excel, organised by market and date.
The split is clean: Terna for the system, GME for the market. If your question is "what did the grid do", it is Terna. If it is "what did it clear at", it is GME.
Zones and the PUN
Italy is divided into bidding zones — North, Centre-North, Centre-South, South, Sicily, Sardinia, plus virtual zones for foreign borders and pumped storage. Generators are paid their zonal price. Consumers pay the PUN, the national single price, which is a consumption-weighted average of the zones.
The PUN is not a market price. Nobody generates at it and no unit is dispatched against it — it is a billing construct. Modelling generator revenue against PUN instead of zonal prices is wrong, and it is the most common Italian mistake.
The zonal structure was redrawn in 2021 when Calabria was separated out; historical series before and after are not directly comparable in the south. If you are backtesting across that boundary, handle it explicitly.
ENTSO-E carries the Italian zones separately — North is 10Y1001A1001A73I, Sicily 10Y1001A1001A75E, Sardinia 10Y1001A1001A74G. That is usually the easiest way to get zonal prices comparable with the rest of Europe; see our ENTSO-E API guide.
The Terna developer portal
Terna runs an API portal where you register an application and receive client credentials, then exchange them for a bearer token. The datasets are documented and versioned, which is more than can be said for several larger markets.
# token
POST https://api.terna.it/transparency/oauth/accessToken
client_id={ID}&client_secret={SECRET}&grant_type=client_credentials
# a dataset
GET https://api.terna.it/transparency/v1.0/getload
?dateFrom=15/09/2026&dateTo=16/09/2026&biddingZone=NORD
Authorization: Bearer {TOKEN}
Dates are DD/MM/YYYY, which catches everyone at least once.
Bidding zone names are Italian strings — NORD, CNOR, CSUD, SUD, SICI, SARD.
The download centre offers the same data as bulk files, which is usually the saner route for a historical backfill.
Practical notes
Sicily and Sardinia behave differently. Both are island systems with limited interconnection, and their prices decouple regularly. Sardinia in particular can sit far from the mainland for days.
MSD is where the money is. The ancillary services market often clears at prices far above the day-ahead, and for storage or flexible assets it dominates the revenue stack. GME publishes it; most foreign models ignore it.
Searching for "GME data" is polluted. Google mixes the Italian market operator with the GameStop ticker, so keyword research and general search alike return noise. Search for "Mercato Elettrico" or "MGP" instead.
Times are local (CET/CEST) in both Terna and GME outputs, with hour numbering 1–24 and the usual 23/25 hour clock-change days.
Frequently asked questions
What is the PUN?
The Prezzo Unico Nazionale — a consumption-weighted average of the Italian zonal prices, used for billing consumers. Generators are paid their zonal price, not the PUN.
Where do I get Italian day-ahead prices?
GME publishes MGP results including zonal prices and the PUN. ENTSO-E carries the same zonal prices in a schema comparable with other European markets.
Does the Terna API need registration?
Yes. You register an application on the Terna developer portal and exchange client credentials for a bearer token. The download centre offers the same data as files.
How many Italian bidding zones are there?
Six physical zones — North, Centre-North, Centre-South, South, Sicily and Sardinia — plus virtual zones. The structure changed in 2021, so older series are not directly comparable in the south.
Why is it hard to search for GME data?
Because search engines conflate the Italian market operator with the GameStop ticker. Use "Mercato Elettrico" or the market codes MGP and MI.
Italian work means zones, islands and an ancillary market that dominates flexible-asset revenue. We build data layers that model that properly rather than averaging it away. Talk to us.