Prices fall quickly on the expected increase in German wind energy supply

The European spot electricity prices dropped on Thursday, as LSEG data predicted that German wind energy generation would triple in the next day.

LSEG's analysis said that lower thermal availability was also bullish, but that the demand in the region is expected to decline day by day.

French baseload for tomorrow's day fell 10.8%, to 130 euros ($134.75 per megawatt-hour (MWh) at 0905 GMT.

The German equivalent fell by nearly 23% to 117.8 Euros.

Germany is expected to produce 31.2 gigawatts of wind power this Friday, which is more than triple the 9.4 GW that was predicted on Thursday. The data indicated that France was expected to produce 1.4 GW of wind power more than the 8.4 GW forecast on Thursday.

The French nuclear capacity has increased by 2 percentage points, to 83%.

Germany's power demand was forecast to fall by 500 MW per day, to 63.1 GW. French demand is expected to drop by 1.3 GW, to 67.7 GW.

The curve showed that the German baseload for the year ahead was up by 0.3%, at 98.7 Euros/MWh. However, the French position for the year ahead was not traded after it settled at 69.3 Euros/MWh.

The benchmark contract for the European carbon market 2025 increased by 0.9%, to 81.84 euro per metric ton.

Analysts from the industry told a conference held in Amsterdam that European data centres would expand their capacity by 22 percent this year. The power consumption of data hubs is already causing grid restrictions.

The power trading at Epex Spot in January was up 11.5% on last year, to 82.6 TWh.

Developers and traders predict that Europe's capacity for battery storage will increase five-fold by 2030 as new projects become cheaper.

Vattenfall, a Swedish company, said that it had sold 52% (of Nordic power production) for 2025 in hedges at 48 euros/MWh on average. This compares to 42 euros/MWh last year. ($1 = 0.9648 euro) (Reporting and editing by David Gooder)

(source: Reuters)