Prices to be affected by Monday's warm and windy weather

The European electricity prices will likely fall dramatically on Monday due to the expected surge in wind power production in Germany. Meanwhile, warmer weather is sending demand down in France.

LSEG data shows that the German and French baseload power contracts for Monday were not traded by 1008 GMT on Friday.

LSEG data shows that German wind power production is expected to increase by 23.2 gigawatts on Monday to 28.8 GW. French wind power is forecast to grow 4 GW to 10,7 GW.

Ricardo Parviero, LSEG analyst, stated that the residual load in Germany is dropping dramatically compared to Friday and will continue to drop across the rest of Europe.

LSEG data revealed that power consumption in Germany will decrease by 2 GW, to 61.8 GW, on Monday. French demand, however, is predicted to fall by 9.8 GW, to 55.1 GW, as temperatures are forecast to increase by 6.8 degrees Celsius, to 12.5 C.

The French nuclear power capacity was unchanged at 84%, as the Tricastin 2 reactor's unplanned outage was offset by a restart of the reactor.

The German baseload for the year ahead was down by 0.5% to 83.95 Euros/MWh, while its French counterpart fell 0.4% at 48.25 Euros/MWh.

EDF's director of key accounts, Nelly Recrosio, said that falling forward market prices helped EDF to sell medium-term contracts because they had indexed them to market values. The long-term offers were still fixed at the estimated costs for nuclear power.

The demand today is low. "But it will grow because we will have large data centers, which will all be constructed around the world, and France will be competitive with decarbonised electric," she said on Thursday at an event.

The benchmark contract on the European carbon markets fell by 0.3%, to 82.21 euro per metric ton. (Reporting and editing by Joe Bavier; Forrest Crellin)

(source: Reuters)