Day Ahead Price Up on Wind Lull, Curve Down

A sharp decline in wind power capacity on Monday boosted European prompt power prices for the day ahead, traders said, adding that renewable power supply would pick up later in the week.

German wind power output looked set to plummet to a quarter of Monday levels on Tuesday, when it would amount to 2 gigawatts (GW), data from Thomson Reuters Point Carbon showed.

Point Carbon saw it double thereafter on Wednesday, and rise to 10 GW by Thursday.

Point Carbon saw daily German solar supply languish around 3 to 4 GW each day this week, compared with total capacity of 35 GW, after the weather turned more autumnal with low solar intensity and falling temperatures.

German baseload (24 hours) for delivery on Tuesday was 6.65 euros up from those paid for Monday delivery last week, arriving at 39.9 euros ($51.3) a megawatt hour.(MWh)

The equivalent French spot contract, Tuesday delivery was 43.5 euros/MWh, 3.5 euros higher than the Monday price had been.

Temperatures in both countries dropped by 5 degrees Celsius, based on a 24-hour average, between Friday and Monday, and stand to shed another degree by Tuesday, according to Point Carbon.

Consumption in Germany will not be greatly moved from the recently typical 61 GW a day this week, the figures showed.

But that in France, which is driven by a large number of electric heating devices, will gain more than 1 GW by Tuesday over the 48 GW a day seen in recent trading days.

Along the power curve, baseload prices for delivery in 2015 edged lower as all related fuel markets showed losses.

German Cal '15 shed 10 cents to 34.85 euros/MWh. The same position in France, Cal'15 baseload, was 15 cents down on the day at 43.0 euros.

Prices of gas, coal and carbon which power generators factor into their production costs were all weaker and those of oil also declined.

In developments around the Ukraine-Russia gas crisis, the most pressing geopolitical energy issue in Europe, Austria said it received up to 25 percent less Russian gas last week and Slovakia said its deliveries were 20 percent below request on Monday.

Slovakia, Poland, Austria and Romania have all reported lower deliveries from Russia versus requested amounts in recent weeks, a situation that undermines their ability to supply Ukraine with gas.

There will be talks on Sept. 26 in Berlin between Ukraine, Russia and the European Commission about resolving Kiev's dispute with Moscow over its gas bill.

(1 US dollar = 0.7780 euro)

(Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Mark Heinrich)