Electricity prices on the markets are an important indicator of the current market and supply situation in Europe and Switzerland. Supply (production) is combined here with demand (consumption) and ultimately results in a price for a specific electricity product. There are markets for different electricity products. The spot markets give short-term signals from the market: the "Day Ahead" market indicates the wholesale electricity price for the following day. The "Base" product prices indicate the arithmetic mean of the prices for a delivery in the following 24 hours. In intraday trading, electricity is bought and sold for delivery on the same day. In the "future" markets, the price of electricity is set today for delivery in the future. Accordingly, a high price in the future may indicate a shortage of electricity in the future anticipated by the market. However, this does not mean that a shortage will actually occur.

The electricity price also indicatively reflects an assessment of the overall market on the supply situation. In the case of short-term shortages, prices will tend to rise on the spot market. Such shortages can be caused, for example, by outages in the European and Swiss production park, a shortfall in supply of supply-dependent production sources such as PV and wind, or by lower availabilities of primary energy sources such as coal or gas. Rising prices on the "futures" markets indicate future shortages suspected by the market.

The spot and "futures" electricity prices, however, do not directly result in the retail price that residential and commercial customers pay to their local energy supplier. These end-customer prices depend, among other things, on the procurement strategy (long-term purchases or short-term purchases on the market) of the local energy supply company, on the share of electricity produced in the company's own power plants, on the quality of the electricity (renewable or not), on the grid costs and levies.

The national consumer price index (CPI) measures the price development (inflation) of the goods and services that are important for private households (basket of goods). It shows by how much consumer goods have become more expensive compared to the previous month, the previous year or any other earlier point in time. The index is based on December 2020. The price development is measured on the basis of the basket of goods, which also includes the most important energy sources - i.e. also electricity. The calculation methodology is managed by the Federal Statistical Office.