French, German Day-Ahead Diverged

The German and French day ahead base-load contracts diverged, with Germany moving up on the day amid low wind on Saturday and France falling due to steady renewable and nuclear output. This pushed up higher power prices in the early morning hours in Germany compared to France – increasing the average baseload price.

• The German day-ahead spot settled at €70.55/MWh from €63.05/MWh on the previous day.
  
• The French day-ahead spot closed at €25.40/MWh from €34.42/MWh on the previous day.
• French power for delivery on 29 June recorded negative prices for just two delivery hours at €-0.19 and €-0.06/MWh for deliver in the hours between 13-15.
• And negative power prices for delivery hours were more present in Germany than in France, with negative prices reaching as high as €-0.23/MWh for hour 13-14.
• But the rise in German prices is mostly attributed to high power prices in the early morning hours, which reached between €103.07-110.40/MWh for hours 00-06. Similar delivery hours in France were only between €16.16-62.19/MWh.
• German wind output is expected at just 2.79GW, or 4% load factor on 29 June, before increasing between 5.46-9.87GW over 30 June-3 July, according to Spot Renewables.
• German power demand is forecast to be between 36.22-53.64GW over 29-30 June, down from 39.83-62.53GW forecast on Friday, data from Entso-E show. Demand will rise over 1-2 July to be between 37.73-63.12GW.
• Maximum temperatures in Berlin are expected to reach as high as around 30C over the weekend – which could raise cooling demand – but will begin tapering off to about 20-25C over 1-2 July.
• In contrast, French wind output is expected at 3.42GW, or 17% load factor on 29 June, before being between 3.14-3.82GW over 30 June- 3 July.
• French nuclear generation is operating at around 34.65GW today, down by only around 5.78GW on the day, according to data from RTE, cited by Bloomberg. but this is slightly below the 30-day average of about 36.47GW.