Observed five-minute SCED LMPs and cleared day-ahead prices at ERCOT's four trading hubs, with the Metis 1 Preview forecast evaluated on the same complete delivery-hour averages.
How do ERCOT day-ahead and real-time prices compare?
ERCOT hub prices peaks at $69.61 on Thu, 6 PM, against a low of $17.93 — a swing of $51.68 across the window. North Hub is the heaviest area at 90 $/MWh.
Explore the forecast in place
Metis 1 Preview, our probabilistic price forecast, is scored on this page against the day-ahead auction. Create a free account to see its forecasts and its track record here.
Plotted window Sep 24, 2:00 AM CDT → Sep 25, 1:55 AM CDT. Metis 1 Preview reissues every 15 minutes; ERCOT clears day-ahead once daily.
Every line above, and who produced it.
Observed five-minute SCED LMPs for the plotted intervals, not separately published settlement prices. Source: ERCOT (SCED and day-ahead).
Observed five-minute SCED LMPs for the plotted intervals, not separately published settlement prices. Source: ERCOT (SCED and day-ahead).
Observed five-minute SCED LMPs for the plotted intervals, not separately published settlement prices. Source: ERCOT (SCED and day-ahead).
Observed five-minute SCED LMPs for the plotted intervals, not separately published settlement prices. Source: ERCOT (SCED and day-ahead).
Each hub’s observed five-minute SCED LMP, cleared day-ahead price, and any model forecast published for the same delivery hours.
Each day of the window on its own.
Every hour of the window, shaded by load.
| 0 | 6 | 12 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, 9/24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fri, 9/25 |
Darkest cells are the tightest hours. The window peaks at 70 $/MWh on Thu, 6 PM, local to the market.
| Hub | Peak ($/MWh) | Peak hour | Low ($/MWh) | Average ($/MWh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Hub | 90 | Thu, 5 PM | 14 | 38 |
| South Hub | 70 | Thu, 6 PM | 18 | 35 |
| West Hub | 87 | Thu, 5 PM | 8 | 37 |
| Houston Hub | 112 | Thu, 3 PM | 19 | 46 |
| Forecast | Avg miss ($/MWh) | Avg miss % | Bias | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day-ahead auction | $10.82 | 25.8% | +$3.92 | 92 |
The latest published vintage of each forecast, against what settled. Smaller is better on every column. Bias is signed: positive means the forecast ran high.
| Series | Produced by | Method | Horizon | Issued |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day-ahead clearing prices | ERCOT (SCED and day-ahead) | ERCOT five-minute SCED LMP and DAM settlement point prices; Metis 1 Preview nodal price model; cleared market result | 24 hours ahead, 15-minute resolution for the model; hourly for day-ahead | Clearing time not exposed by this feed |
Metis 1 Preview publishes seven quantile levels from p05 to p95; the band on the chart is the p10-p90 range. ERCOT's day-ahead price is a single cleared number with no uncertainty attached. ERCOT prices are heavy-tailed — scarcity intervals move faster than these forecasts resolve.
The page shows observed five-minute SCED LMPs, the financially binding day-ahead clearing prices for the same delivery hours, and the Metis 1 Preview forecast. Day-ahead is a market result rather than an operator forecast; the scorecard compares complete hourly averages so one five-minute observation cannot stand in for an hour.
ERCOT's day-ahead market is a financially binding auction that clears before delivery. Its price reflects cleared bids and offers, including expectations and risk preferences; it is not an ERCOT price forecast or a probability distribution.
Our forecast is a statistical model, not a market simulation. It reads real-time and day-ahead prices, load forecasts, and weather, and every 15 minutes issues a probability distribution for each 15-minute interval of the next 24 hours at each settlement point. It outputs quantiles rather than a single number, so the band on the chart is the model's own stated uncertainty.
The day-ahead auction and the statistical model are different products. One is a cleared market result; the other is a probabilistic forecast. Both are evaluated against observed SCED LMP on matched complete hub-hours. The five-minute uncertainty band remains visible on the chart, but it is not converted into an invented hourly interval score.
curl "https://askthegrid.com/api/v1/grid/series?iso=ERCOT&metric=dam&node=HB_NORTH"
Connect your agent to mcp.askthegrid.com and this forecast is a tool call away — the same host Claude and ChatGPT connectors already use.
No. It is the financially binding clearing price from ERCOT's day-ahead auction. It can serve as a benchmark for a price model because both apply to future delivery hours, but the auction result is not an ERCOT forecast.
The scorecard measures absolute difference and signed bias over matched complete delivery-hour averages of observed SCED LMP. It describes recent day-ahead-to-real-time divergence; it does not establish a persistent premium from one short window.
Day-ahead clears on expectations; real-time clears on what actually happened. Unforecast outages, weather misses, and demand surprises all move real time away from day-ahead — and the spread between them is what virtual traders and batteries are positioned against.
Our own probabilistic price model. It reads real-time and day-ahead prices, load forecasts, and weather, and every 15 minutes issues a distribution for each 15-minute interval of the next 24 hours at each settlement point. It outputs quantiles, so its uncertainty is stated rather than implied.
Yes. The Metis 1 Preview forecast appears on this page beside the settled and day-ahead prices, with the same access as the rest of the page.