Czech and Slovak Spot Prices Fall on Ample Wind Power, Hungary Gains

• Polish utilities to have 5.2 MW offline on Thursday
• Hungarian supplies remain tight
• Wind generation pegged at 6.5 gigawatts

Health wind generation levels drove Czech and Slovak day-ahead prices lower on Wednesday while Hungarian spot prices gained on limited supply, traders said.

On regional exchanges, Czech and Slovak electricity for Thursday fell 2.7 percent to 34.63 euros ($43.87) per megawatt hour while Hungarian day ahead rose 26 percent to 55.60 euros on Hungary's HUPX exchange.

A planned outage at a unit at the PAKS nuclear power plant and a planned cross-border capacity cut along the Slovak border crimped exports and helped keep supply tight.

Data from Thomson Reuters Point Carbon was forecast to remain healthy at 6.5 gigawatts for Thursday after easing from 8.2 GW with solar output pegged to jump about 1 GW to 3.2 GW.

"There is still a lot of wind," one trader said.

Further along the curve, the Czech front month fell 20 cents to 36.05 euros and Hungarian power for November delivery declined 55 cents to 45.75 euros in over-the-counter trade.

On the Prague-based Power Exchange Central Europe, the Czech Cal '15 gained 10 cents to 34.80 euros and the Hungarian front year shed 25 cents to 43.50 euros.

Around the region, the benchmark German Cal '15 contract edged 5 cents higher to 34.40 euros in afternoon trade on Germany's EEX exchange.

Day-ahead prices on Poland's POLPX exchange decreased to 178.66 zlotys ($54.03) from 179.04 zlotys. Bourse data showed the country's utilities were expected to have 5.2 gigawatts offline on Wednesday for planned and unplanned outages, a decline of about 700 megawatts from a day ago.

Russia has reserved storage space in Hungary for 700 million cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas for Europe under an agreement reached between the two countries last month, business daily Napi Gazdasag reported, citing unnamed sources.

Gas deliveries from Russia's Gazprom to Romania fell by 18 percent compared with nominated volumes from state-owned gas grid operator Transgaz, the European Union state's energy ministry said.

Brent crude oil dipped below $91 a barrel to its lowest since June 2012 as lower economic growth forecasts prompted concerns about global oil demand at a time of abundant supply.

European carbon futures rose 2 cents to 5.93 euros a tonne in afternoon trading.

(1 US dollar = 0.7894 euro) (1 US dollar = 3.3068 Polish zloty)

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by David Evans)