POWER
Nordic hydro stocks over 6-12 May (week 19) continued their climb from the previous week to increase the fastest for any week so far this year, with reservoir levels rising in all Nordic countries.
- Hydro reservoir level up to 30.7%, or about 38.92TWh, from 26.3%, or 33.35TWh in week 18. This is the highest reservoir levels have been since week 11 of this year, when they stood at 30.6% of capacity.
- On the year, hydro stocks are up 2.5 percentage points – the highest year-on year comparison so far in 2024.
- But reservoir levels widened their deficit to the 19-year avg to 6.1 percentage points from 5.1 in the previous week, although the surplus to 19-year min widened to 11.2 percentage points from 8.9 percentage points.
- Swedish hydro stocks rose to 24.6% of capacity from 19,7% in week 18, with Norwegian and Finnish stocks reaching 31.8% and 50.2%, respectively from 27.7% and 44.3%.
- Nuclear capacity in the Nordic region will rise by 1.6GW this week as Finland’s 1.6GW Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant is still anticipated to return on 15 May.
- But Swedish utility Vattenfall has delayed the start of their 1.11GW Forsmark 2 nuclear reactor by 4 days to 22 May, according to latest Remit data.
- Power demand could be lower in the region as temperatures in NW Europe are expected to hold above normal throughout the two-week forecast.
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