French spot prices rise due to increased demand and lower wind supply
The French prompt electricity prices increased on Monday due to the expectation of increasing demand and reduced wind output.
LSEG data shows that the price of French baseload electricity for Tuesday at 0926 GMT was 132.25 Euros ($139.09 per megawatt-hour (MWh), up 29.7% compared to Friday's price for Monday's delivery.
German day-ahead electricity was 139 euros/MWh. LSEG data revealed that the Monday contract had not been traded on Friday.
Riccardo Paraviero, LSEG analyst, said: "The signal (on Tuesday) is bullish. It's mainly due to a combination between increasing wind power consumption and decreasing supply."
LSEG data indicated that the German wind power production was forecast to drop by 8.8 gigawatts on Tuesday, to 17.3 GW. The French wind power was predicted to decline by 4.9 gigawatts to 2.3 GW.
The French nuclear capacity remained at 82%.
EDF, the French nuclear operator, said that Chooz 2 went offline due to a short outage on a water pipeline.
EDF has posted a notice of a strike that will take place from the evenings of December 3 and 5.
LSEG data shows that power consumption in Germany will rise by 2.4 GW Tuesday to 63 GW while in France, demand is projected to grow by 4.9 GW up to 60.6 GW.
The German power contract for 2025 was up 1.4% to 77.60 Euros/MWh, while the French baseload contract for 2025 rose 2% to 99.45 Euros/MWh.
Analysts at Energi Danmark said that the decrease in European gas inventories, which has decreased by 10% over the past month, "causes concern on the market", especially because of the fear that Russian supplies could be cut off prematurely.
Gazprom, a Russian gas producer, said that it will send 40.8 million cubic meters (mcm), or 3% less than the 42 mcm/day of gas seen in recent weeks.
The European CO2 allowances in December 2024 increased by 1.8%, to 69.65 euro per metric ton. $1 = 0.9508 Euros (Reporting and additional reporting by Forrest Krellin, Editing by Ed Osmond).
(source: Reuters)
