CWE Power –German August-September Discount Remains Firm

The German August-September discount has remained firm on Wednesday morning as losses have been slightly sharper for the front month, despite temperature forecasts still pointing to a drop in temperatures from August to September – potentially leading to lower cooling demand in the latter month. Both contracts are following losses in EU gas, with France August resisting amid an upward revision of temperatures.

• France Base Power AUG 24 up 0.1% at 45.75 EUR/MWh
• Germany Base Power AUG 24 down 0.9% at 70.95 EUR/MWh
• EUA DEC 24 down 0.4% at 67.72 EUR/MT
• TTF Gas AUG 24 down 0.3% at 32.69 EUR/MWh
• The German August-September power base load contract has narrowed its discount to €7.05/MWh compared to €7.07/MWh on 17 July.
• TTF is holding onto gains from yesterday with support from the slow return of Freeport after the Hurricane Beryl shutdown. At least seven scheduled cargoes have been cancelled due to the outage, according to Bloomberg but feedgas flows are edging higher up to 0.38bcf/d today.
• EU ETS Dec 24 remains relatively range-bound after yesterday’s slight increase supported by gains in European gas prices, while price falls in the EU ETS CAP 2 Auction likely placed downward pressure.
• Forecasts for wind output in Germany have been revised down for early next week, with the forecast on 22 July (Monday) down by around 915MW on the day to reach a 14% load factor or 8.90GW before falling just a 4% load factor the next day.
• Average temperatures in Berlin across August are forecasted at 18.6C and are expected to drop to 15.4C, ECMWF forecasts show.
• German power demand has been mostly unchanged on the day over 18-21 July, with consumption expected between 51.53-53.11GW over 18-19 July – down by around 100MW on the day and slightly lower than demand forecasts for 17 July, according to ECMWF.
• French nuclear availability rose to 71% as of Wednesday morning, up from 68% Tuesday, RTE data showed, cited by Bloomberg.
• EdF’s 1.3GW Nogent 1 and 900MW Tricastin 4 nuclear unit returned to the grid, with the 1.33GW Flamanville2 outage still extended to 30 August from 1 August, Bbg data show.
• The latest ECMWF weather forecast for Paris, suggests an upward revision of average temperatures over 17-19 July, with the forecasts up by an average of around 1.8C over the period. Max temperatures are anticipated between 24-31.5C over 18-26 July – which could spur cooling demand.