Drop in Wind, Solar Output to Lift Spot Prices

Falling German wind and solar power supply forecasts on Friday boosted European spot prices for early next week, with consumption at that time seen flat compared with this week's.

"Wind power on Monday will fall to 3 gigawatts (GW) from levels around 5 GW at the beginning of this week and 7 GW seven days ago, and solar will go down by 3 GW by then from now," one trader said.

"Lower German nuclear supply as plants close for maintenance is priced in," he added.

German baseload for Monday delivery was at 38 euros ($52.1) a megawatt hour, up 4.25 euros from what was paid for Friday delivery. French Monday baseload was up 2.75 euros to 37.75 euros per MWh.
 

Thomson Reuters Point Carbon data endorsed the trader's wind power estimate while also showing solar will likely fall to 3.7 GW on Monday compared with 6.6 GW on Thursday.

Consumption in both countries on Monday was seen stable at this week's levels around 61 GW and 51 GW respectively, according to Point Carbon.
 

Temperatures were forecast to fall by 2.1 and 2.3 degrees on a 24-hour basis on average in the two countries respectively between Friday and Monday.
 

French nuclear power availability has tightened to under 70 percent of the maximum total, and Germany's is at 75 percent, due to the start of E.ON's Grohnde reactor outage on Friday and a load drop at E.ON's Isar 2 plant.

Thermal availability in Germany and Austria will likely fall by 2.4 percent next week, data from the EEX bourse showed.
 

Some of the planned capacity reduction is accounted for by operators' expectation of lower demand as the week will be shortened by the May Day holiday on Thursday.

Along the power forward curve, the German Cal '15 baseload contract was up 5 cents from the previous day at 34.85 euros. The equivalent French Cal' 15 contract gained 5 cents to 42.05 euros.

Traders said forwards prices were underpinned by higher coal and long-term gas prices as well as oil's recent near 7-week high, although it slipped on Friday.

North Europe coal delivery for next month has gained $1.50 a tonne to $76.25 since Wednesday, broker quotes showed.

European carbon prices meanwhile fell sharply as traders squared long positions ahead of the weekend. The Dec '14 last down over 4 percent at 5.52 euros a tonne.
 

($1 = 0.7236 Euros)

(Reporting by Vera Eckert,; Editing by David Evans)