When all members have submitted their orders, equilibrium between the aggregated supply and demand curves is established for all bidding areas. The system and area prices are calculated and published.

The system price is calculated based on the sale and purchase orders disregarding the available transmission capacity between the bidding areas in the Nordic market. The system price is the Nordic reference price for trading and clearing of most financial contracts.

For each Nordic country, the local TSO decides, which bidding areas the country is divided into. The number of Norwegian bidding areas can vary, today there are five bidding areas. Eastern Denmark and Western Denmark are always treated as two different bidding areas. Finland and Estonia constitute one bidding area each. Sweden was divided into four bidding areas on 1 November 2011.

The different bidding areas help indicate constraints in the transmission systems, and ensure that regional market conditions are reflected in the price. Due to bottlenecks in the transmission system, the bidding areas may get different prices called area prices. When there are constraints in transmission capacity between two bidding areas, the power will always go from the low price area to the high price area. This principle is right for society: the commodity ought to move towards the high price where the demand for power is the highest. This system also secures that no market members are assigned privileges on any bottleneck, which is an important feature of a liberal market. Nord Pool Spot calculates a price for each bidding area for each hour of the following day.