Tempo white day: prices, dates and Saturdays
White days outnumber red ones and are far less feared: their price stays close to Base, but they can fall on a Saturday too.
A Tempo season contains 43 white days, the middle level between blue and red days. RTE can place them on any date of the year except a Sunday, so on a Saturday too, or outside winter. On the regulated tariff of 1 August 2026, a white-day kilowatt-hour costs €0.1921 at peak time, 06:00 to 22:00, and €0.1536 off-peak, 22:00 to 06:00, against €0.1654 and €0.1356 on a blue day and €0.2001 on the Base option at 6 kVA. A white day is therefore not one to dodge at any cost: at peak time it is barely dearer than Base. Over the 12 seasons completed since 2014, 62 of the 520 white days fell on a Saturday, and most fell in the depth of winter. The mini-calculator below gives the cost of one white day and of a whole season’s white days for your household.
What a white day costs you
One white day
€5
| The same day as blue | €4 |
| The same day on Base (6 kVA) | €5 |
| The season’s 43 white days | €194 |
| Extra cost of white over blue days | €26 |
kWh prices incl. tax from 1 August 2026, standing charge excluded.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
What the rule says
The regulator’s 2014 deliberation that gave RTE the job of choosing the days sets only two constraints for white days: there are 43 per season, and none falls on a Sunday. Unlike red days they are not limited to winter, to weekdays or to a maximum run. RTE publishes them the same way, at 10:30 the day before, on its Tempo calendar.
The white day acts as a buffer. When net demand passes the algorithm’s first threshold without reaching the second, the day turns white; when it passes both, it turns red, provided it is a weekday between November and March. A bitterly cold Saturday can therefore become white where an identical Tuesday would have been red.
Where white days really fall
The calendar RTE has published since 2014 lets us count, season by season, the date of the first white day and how many white days fell on a Saturday.
| Season | First white day | White days | On a Saturday |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-2015 | 1 December 2014 | 43 | 5 |
| 2015-2016 | 23 November 2015 | 43 | 3 |
| 2016-2017 | 7 November 2016 | 43 | 6 |
| 2017-2018 | 28 November 2017 | 43 | 7 |
| 2018-2019 | 20 November 2018 | 43 | 5 |
| 2019-2020 | 14 November 2019 | 47 | 3 |
| 2020-2021 | 23 November 2020 | 43 | 6 |
| 2021-2022 | 23 November 2021 | 43 | 3 |
| 2022-2023 | 29 November 2022 | 43 | 6 |
| 2023-2024 | 22 November 2023 | 43 | 6 |
| 2024-2025 | 14 November 2024 | 43 | 7 |
| 2025-2026 | 20 November 2025 | 43 | 5 |
Spread by month, across all those seasons:
| Month | White days |
|---|---|
| November | 49 |
| December | 124 |
| January | 119 |
| February | 105 |
| March | 76 |
| April | 29 |
| May | 9 |
| June | 9 |
The picture is clear: white days come with the cold. They arrive with the first cold of November and stretch into spring when the stock has not run out. Summer months get few, if any.
A price close to Base
At peak time a white kWh costs €0.1921, against €0.2001 on Base and €0.2142 at peak on the Off-peak option (EDF grid of 1 August 2026). A white day therefore costs almost nothing extra compared with a standard contract. White off-peak hours, at €0.1536, are even cheaper than the Off-peak option’s off-peak rate. That is one reason Tempo stays attractive despite its red days: 43 days in 365 are billed around the usual price, and more than 300 below it.
The habits that are enough
On a white day there is no need to turn the heating down or give up the oven. The habits that count are the free ones: let the water heater run at night, start the washing machine after 22:00 when you can, schedule car charging for off-peak hours. Save your vigilance for red days, when the same kWh costs nearly four times as much.
A white Saturday deserves a little attention, because it is the day of big washes and cleaning. Check the colour on Friday late morning: if Saturday is white, bringing a load forward to Friday evening or pushing it to Sunday, always blue, saves a few euros with no effort.
Keeping track of the season’s stock
The count of white days already published and still to come, updated every day, is on the Tempo days left page. The season history shows, winter by winter, how RTE spread its white and red days, and what those days cost for a consumption like yours.
How much white days weigh in a year
For a household whose use is spread evenly over the year, the 43 white days are 11.8 % of the days. For an electrically heated household the share is higher, because white days mostly fall in winter: according to national demand measured by RTE, they concentrate 29.4 % of heating consumption. The table compares the cost of the same day by colour, for three levels of use with 30% at night.
| A day of | Blue | White | Red | On Base (6 kVA) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 kWh | €2 | €3 | €8 | €3 |
| 30 kWh | €5 | €5 | €17 | €6 |
| 50 kWh | €8 | €9 | €28 | €10 |
The white column stays close to the Base column, while the red one pulls well away from it. For a year’s bill, white days therefore count mainly through their number, not their price.
What a white day signals
A white day is not just a price: it is a signal about the state of the grid. It means the net demand RTE forecasts has crossed the first threshold of its algorithm. In every season published since 2014, the first white day came before the first red one, anywhere from a few days to several weeks earlier. It is a good moment to check your settings: thermostat schedule, water heater times, charging start time, and your supplier’s alerts.
In spring, on the other hand, white days use up the season’s stock. The cold is easing, but RTE must have placed its 43 days before 31 August. The month table shows those late white days stay rare in May and June, and absent from the summer months in the published record.
White Saturdays and family life
Saturday is often the busiest day in the house: laundry, cooking, DIY, charging for the weekend. If it is white, the extra cost stays limited, but it lands on a full day. Simple habits are enough: check the colour on Friday, run one load on Friday evening and keep the biggest ones for Sunday, which is always blue.
Do you need alerts for white days?
Colour alerts matter most for red days, but they flag white ones too. If a notification arrives every white evening, you may end up ignoring them and missing the next day’s red. A sensible setting is to ask for alerts on red days only and to check Saturday’s colour on Friday. For the rest, Tempo’s off-peak hours do most of the work: a household that already uses a good share at night has almost nothing to change on a white day.
Automation makes it simpler still. A thermostat or energy manager linked to the Linky meter receives the colour and can apply a different setting for each kind of day: normal on blue, slightly lower on white, clearly lower on red. That three-level setting takes advantage of the price gap without asking for daily attention.
To check that a setting works, compare two winter weeks in your supplier’s online account: white-day peak consumption should stay close to blue days, and red-day consumption clearly lower.
A last point for households who arrive mid-season: the stock of white days already used does not change what you pay per white day, only how many remain. The count is on the Tempo days left page, refreshed every day.
For households new to Tempo, the first winter is the time to learn the rhythm: a few white days in November, the first red ones in late autumn or winter, then a mix of colours until March. After one season most people stop checking white days altogether and keep an eye out only for red.