Day-ahead vs. real-time
Every morning the day-ahead market prices tomorrow, hour by hour. This page grades that bet against what the grid actually paid.
Two prices for every hour
Aug 18 · EST · 8-hub average- - day-ahead — real-timeWhere the misses landed
by hub and hour · click a hub to re-scope the chart aboveHub rows rank by today's average miss. zone mean of the load-zone settlement point prices.
The premium by hour
average spread by hourAverage of 719 paired hours since 2026-07-19. Fills in as the record grows.
Late afternoon carries the day's scarcity, so those are the hours day-ahead prices hardest. When this chart bulges violet after 3 PM, that is why.
Tomorrow is already priced
the day-ahead betAug 19, as the day-ahead market cleared it. Real time starts grading at midnight.
Today by hub
day-ahead vs real-time averages| Hub | Day-ahead avg | Real-time avg | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | $37.68 | $41.05 | +$5.09 |
| Illinois | $42.89 | $45.43 | +$6.11 |
| Indiana | $45.80 | $48.16 | +$4.89 |
| Louisiana | $40.69 | $43.38 | +$4.53 |
| Michigan | $44.45 | $49.38 | +$8.06 |
| Minnesota | $45.66 | $45.38 | +$2.26 |
| Mississippi | $39.83 | $42.90 | +$4.92 |
| Texas | $40.14 | $44.33 | +$6.06 |
Real-time averages cover graded hours only. Full interval detail is on the prices page.
What is the day-ahead market?
MISO clears a day-ahead market every morning: offers close mid-morning and results post by 3 PM EST, locking an hourly price for every hour of tomorrow. Most MISO load settles against those prices, and the real-time market trues up the difference every five minutes.
What is DART?
Trader shorthand for the day-ahead to real-time spread. On this page the spread is real time minus day-ahead, so a positive number means the hour settled above its day-ahead price and a negative number means day-ahead carried a premium.
Why do the two prices differ?
The day-ahead price embeds a forecast of weather, demand, and which plants will run. Real time is the grid as found. MISO adds distance: the footprint runs from the Gulf Coast to Manitoba, and weather that surprises one region shows up in real time wherever the lines bind.
Where does this data come from?
MISO's public data feeds: day-ahead hourly and real-time five-minute prices for the eight hubs shown here, the same feeds behind the prices page. MISO runs its market day on EST year-round, so every day grades a full 24 hours.