Spot Prices Mixed, Hungary Day Ahead Falls
Czech and Slovak day ahead power rose on Thursday due to expectations for less solar supply in the region, while the expected return of a nuclear reactor drove Hungarian prices lower, traders said.
On regional exchanges, Czech and Slovak electricity for Friday rose more than 3 percent to 36.59 euros ($48.17) per megawatt hour, while day ahead on Hungary's HUPX exchange fell about 13 percent to 42.69 euros.
Hungary is expected to end an outage later on Thursday after output at one of the four reactors at the PAKS nuclear power plant was cut in half to fix a mechanical problem.
"PAKS should be starting up the second unit and there is a holiday in Slovakia so there is more power to ship to Hungary," one trader said.
Data from Thomson Reuters Point Carbon showed forecasts for wind generation in Germany rising about 300 megawatts to 2 gigawatts, with solar output pegged to fall about 1.4 GW to 4.4 GW.
The escalating crisis in Ukraine pushed up prices along the far curve, traders said. The Czech Cal '15 rose 20 cents to 34.95 euros and the Hungarian front year gained 15 cents to 43.95 euros on the Prague-based Power Exchange Central Europe.
Around the region, the benchmark German Cal '15 contract climbed 23 cents higher to 35.85 euros in afternoon trade on Germany's EEX exchange.
Day ahead on the POLPX exchange rose to 176.24 zlotys ($55.07) from 173.05 zlotys.
European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the bloc was seeking to fill its gas storage facilities and de-escalate a row between Ukraine and Russia in order to safeguard its own gas shipments from Russia in the 2014/15 winter.
Russian natural gas flows to the European Union through Slovakia via Ukraine were running normally on Thursday, Slovak pipeline operator Eustream said on its website.
Brent crude oil steadied around $103 a barrel, not far above 14-month lows on ample supply and lacklustre demand as global economic growth remained tepid.
European Union carbon futures rose 5 cents to 6.43 euros a tonne in afternoon trading.
(1 US dollar = 0.7596 euro) (1 US dollar = 3.2004 Polish zloty)
(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Mark Potter)
