PUN and zonal prices: which price applies to you?

The day-ahead market

Wholesale energy is bought and sold mainly on the day-ahead market (MGP), organised by the GME, Italy’s energy markets operator: most trades go through it. Producers, wholesalers and eligible end customers submit their offers for the following day by 12 noon on the day before: how much energy, and at what minimum price to sell or maximum price to buy.

Once the session closes, the GME lines up the sell offers from the cheapest and the buy offers from the highest: where the two curves cross, the price is set, for each interval of the following day. In 2025 the European day-ahead market, of which the MGP is part, introduced 15-minute products.

Zones and zonal prices

The grid cannot carry all the energy wherever it is needed: between one area and another there are physical transmission limits. That is why Italy is divided into market zones. If no limit is saturated, the price is the same in all zones; if a limit is saturated, the market splits and each part has its own zonal price, higher where energy is imported and lower where it is exported.

There are seven geographical zones: North, Centre-North, Centre-South, South, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia; for exchanges with other countries there are virtual zones. They are defined by Terna, the transmission system operator, and approved by ARERA: the current configuration, approved with ARERA resolution 103/2019, has been in force since 1 January 2021. Tuscany is in the Centre-North zone, with Marche; Umbria is in the Centre-South zone, with Lazio, Abruzzo and Campania.

From the PUN to the PUN Index GME

Until 2024, purchases on the MGP were paid at the PUN, the single national price, while sales were already at the zonal price. From 1 January 2025 the PUN was superseded, as provided for by Article 13 of Legislative Decree 210 of 2021: this was implemented by the Ministerial Decree of 18 April 2024 of the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security and by ARERA resolution 304/2024.

Today purchases too are valued at the zonal price, but a compensation component applies to all withdrawals: the difference between the zonal price and the PUN Index GME. If the zonal price is higher, the difference is received; if it is lower, it is paid. In the end buyers pay the PUN Index GME, which the GME calculates after the market as the average of the zonal prices weighted by the purchases in each zone, using the same criteria as the old PUN.

The results can be read on the GME website, among the day-ahead market results: the PUN Index GME and zonal prices.

Producers and consumers

If you produce, it is the price of your zone that counts. On the MGP, sell offers are paid at the zonal price, and the compensation component does not apply to them. The GSE dedicated withdrawal scheme also pays the hourly zonal price, “relating to your geographical market zone and the time band of feed-in”: a plant in Tuscany receives the Centre-North price, one in Umbria the Centre-South price. The comparison with a negotiated contract is in the guide Dedicated withdrawal or open market?

If you consume, you buy energy from a supplier; but at wholesale level, for withdrawals, the price is brought into line with the PUN Index GME. That is why, in a variable-price offer, the index that counts for you is the PUN and not the price of your zone. If your contract is indexed to the PUN, check how it defines the index from 2025: the name has changed.

Hours and time bands

The wholesale price changes over the course of the day: in the dedicated withdrawal scheme, for example, the zonal price “varies for each hour”. In offers for consumers, the energy price can be divided into time bands. ARERA defines three:

• F1: 8am–7pm, Monday to Friday, excluding national holidays;
• F2: 7am–8am and 7pm–11pm, Monday to Friday, and 7am–11pm on Saturdays;
• F3: 11pm–7am, Monday to Saturday, and all hours on Sundays and national holidays.

On the open market, with a second-generation electronic meter, the price can also follow time bands other than these.

What EKA does

Every day we send active clients the market report: PUN, PSV (the gas price at the Virtual Trading Point), zonal prices and the photovoltaic capture price by zone, that is the average price photovoltaic plants earn, weighted by their output. Producers see what their zone is worth; consumers, the index of their contract. Every week we describe in words how PUN and PSV have moved: the weekly note. The sources we read every day and the report are on the regulations and markets page.