Prices rise due to tighter supply of nuclear and wind

The price of European baseload electricity for the day ahead on Tuesday rose as wind and nuclear power supply in the region decreased, offsetting the negative pressure caused by falling demand.

LSEG analyst Florine Engl weighed up other factors that affect supply and demand, including the availability of brown coal in Germany and increased solar power.

By 8:05 GMT, the French contract for baseload power was 51 euros (58.87 dollars) per megawatt-hour (MWh), while the German contract was 60 euros/MWh. This is a 39.5% increase.

Overnight, French nuclear availability dropped by four percentages points to 72% installed capacity. This is also a reflection of the Flamanville 3, reactor delays announced on Monday.

EDF, the operator, said that power at Bugey 2, a nuclear reactor in eastern France, will be reduced for several hours by 730MW on Wednesday due to environmental concerns.

Last week, the utility warned that high temperatures in rivers could impact power production.

LSEG data showed that wind power generation in Germany is likely to drop from 24.2 GW per day to 18.9 GW.

In Germany, power demand is expected to drop by 200 MW during the same time period, reaching 51 GW by Wednesday. It will also fall by the exact same amount in France where it's predicted to total 41.5 GW.

The German baseload for the year ahead dropped 0.3% to just below 87 euros/MWh, while France's fell 0.7% to 61.6 euros.

An analysis revealed that some of Europe's old coal- and gas-fired plants with ready access to water and power may have a high-tech repurpose as data centres as big tech companies seek to do.

EPEX SPOT, based in Paris, reported that its day-ahead volumes and intraday volume were 0.6% higher than the previous year. This amounted to 72.3 terawatt-hours (TWh). $1 = 0.8663 Euros (Reporting and editing by Harikrishnan Nair, Vera Eckert, Forrest Crellin)

(source: Reuters)