Prices rise sharply due to less wind and nuclear supply
The wholesale European power prices surged Tuesday, as French nuclear power generation dropped and wind power production in the region is expected to be lower on the day ahead.
A market that is under-supplied can be identified by the weaker scenario of electricity supply and the higher demand projections.
By 815 GMT on Wednesday, the price of French baseload electricity for delivery was 59 euros ($69.57 per megawatt-hour (MWh), up 165.2% over the previous close.
The German baseload day-ahead bid was 72.2 euros/MWh after closing at 17.5 euro/MWh.
The French nuclear capacity dropped six percentage points, to 73% total capacity. Two new outages were added.
Cattenom 3 was disconnected on Monday from the grid for maintenance on the turbine controls system located in the reactor's non-nuclear portion. It was reconnected soon after, but is still offline, according to French nuclear operator EDF.
EDF announced on Monday that it received notices of a nationwide strike for late Wednesday to Thursday.
LSEG data revealed that the German wind output is expected to decline by 15.4 gigawatts per day to 31.2 GW. The French output, meanwhile, was expected to decrease 4.1 GW from 3.9 GW.
On Wednesday, power consumption in Germany will increase by 1.3 GW and reach 55.7 GW. In France, demand is expected to remain unchanged at 43.7 GW.
The German baseload power for the year ahead was not traded after it closed at 86.4 Euros on Monday. Its French counterpart was down 0.8%, at 58.0 euros.
The German economy ministry announced on Monday that it will stop using fixed-price, long-term contracts to purchase power from renewable energy sources. It published the results of a monitoring procedure.
The engineering, utility, and labour groups welcomed these reforms. However, some said that it was unclear whether they would result in the right investments. ($1 = 0.8448 euros) (Reporting and additional research by Forrest Krellin, Editing by Eileen Soreng).
(source: Reuters)
