Situations may of course arise where too little power is supplied in an area at the system price, and bottlenecks in the grid may make it impossible to supply an adequate volume of power to this area. In this case it will become a high price zone: an area where the price is higher than the system price.

Correspondingly, situations may arise where too much power is supplied in an area at the system price, and the grid cannot transport enough power out of this area. In such cases this zone becomes a low price area: an area where the price is less than the system price.

Norway can be divided into several price zones (three zones this winter), while Finland, Sweden and Western Denmark (Jylland/Fyn) cannot be divided into more than one price zone internally.

In Norway Statnett sets the zonal pricing.