Volton Public Data

All datasets / Imbalance price

Estonia imbalance price

The single imbalance price settled with every Estonian Balance Responsible Party each 15-minute MTU. Derived from the marginal balancing-energy bids activated through MARI / PICASSO. Sourced from Elering, refreshed hourly.

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Endpoints

Row schema

ColumnTypeUnitNullableDescription
mtu_start string (date-time) — no Settlement period start (ISO 8601 UTC). 15-minute period under EBGL Article 53.
price_eur_mwh number EUR/MWh yes Single-direction imbalance settlement price for the EE bidding zone. Derived from the marginal balancing-energy bid activated through MARI/PICASSO.

Top-level response: { schema_version, generated_at, meta, rows: [...] }

Code samples

curl 
curl https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json
DuckDB 
SELECT * FROM read_json_auto(
  'https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json',
  records = false
);
Python (pandas) 
import pandas as pd

resp = pd.read_json('https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json')
df = pd.DataFrame(resp['rows'])
R (jsonlite) 
library(jsonlite)
data <- fromJSON('https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json')
df <- data$rows
JavaScript (fetch) 
const r = await fetch('https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json');
const { rows, meta } = await r.json();
Excel Power Query (M) 
let
    Source = Json.Document(Web.Contents("https://public-data.volton.energy/v1/imbalance-price/latest.json")),
    Rows = Source[rows],
    AsTable = Table.FromRecords(Rows)
in
    AsTable

Methodology

Under EBGL Article 55, Estonia applies single imbalance pricing: one price per 15-minute settlement period, derived from the marginal balancing energy activated. There is no fixed administrative price — the imbalance price is a market outcome.

When the system is short, BRPs that contributed to the shortage pay the upward imbalance price; when long, they pay (or receive) the downward price. Same-direction imbalances are paid more than offsetting ones.

FAQ

Is this the same as the day-ahead price?
No. Day-ahead is forecast-based and clears once at noon. Imbalance is settled per 15-min MTU based on what actually happened — typically diverges from spot during balancing events.
Why might the value be unavailable?
The single imbalance price requires a full balancing-state calculation, which Elering publishes with a short delay. Outage of the upstream feed will leave a gap in this dataset.

License + citation

Source: Elering via Volton, CC-BY-4.0. CC-BY-4.0.

Volton Technology OÜ (2026). Estonia imbalance price.
CC-BY-4.0. https://public-data.volton.energy/imbalance-price/

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