German, French Day-Ahead Diverge on Low Wind, High Nuclear

The German and French day-ahead baseload contracts diverged, with France moving down amid stronger wind load factors compared to Germany coupled with stable nuclear capacity, while Germany rose on low wind forecasts.

• The German day-ahead spot settled at €79.28/MWh from €65.86/MWh on the previous day.
• The French day-ahead spot cleared at €53.89/MWh from €61.05/MWh on the previous day.
• German wind is expected at just 3.89GW, or a 6% load factor on 25 July and will rise the next day to an 8% load factor – which could drop prices lower from the previous day. But over 29-30 July (Mon-Tue) wind will only be at 4-5% load factors – likely raising prices from the weekend amid higher demand and less wind.
• German power demand over 25-28 July has been mostly unchanged over the period, with the highest downward revision recorded on 27 July at -90MW. Demand is forecasts between 51.6-52.9GW over 25-26 July, dropping to 41-44GW over 27-28 July before rising to 51GW the next day, ECMWF shows.
• In France, wind forecast point to output at 1.57GW, or an 8% load factor on 25 July, rising to a 9% load factor the next day, which could keep FR at a discount to Germany amid stead French nuclear capacity.
• French nuclear availability was stable on the day at 73% as of Wednesday morning, RTE data showed, cited by Bloomberg.
• Edf is anticipated to end its unplanned outage at its 1.33GW Paluel 3 nuclear reactor on 31 July, with the 1.49GW Civaux 1 reconnected on 26 July.
• Epex Spot reported that the market coupling process had “encountered severe technical issues” on 24 July, which impacted the Czech bidding zone and delayed the results – shadow auctions took place as a fallback solution, it said earlier.