Nordic Front-Month Falls Amid Nuclear Return

The Nordic July baseload power contract had edged down this morning amid the return of the 1.6GW Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, which shut down unexpectedly on Monday. Neighbouring European markets are also lower amid price falls in European gas, adding additional downward pressure.

• Nordic July down 2.78% at €35/MWh.
• TTF July down 1.04% at €35.640/MWh.
• Finland’s 1.6GW Olkiluoto 3 returned to the gird on Tuesday, however, the unit is only running at around 440MW of capacity at the time of writing, according to plant operator TVO.
• The unit is anticipated to be fully available on 4 June 00:00 CET, latest Remit show.
• Nordic stocks could be supported further in July from June as rainfall in the Nordics is expected at an average of about 84mm compared to 64mm in the previous month.
• And average temperatures in the Nordics are expected at about 16C in July compared to about 14.6C in June, Bloomberg Model show. Decreasing the need for heating demand.
• Closer in, Nordic nuclear reactors were operating at 70% of capacity on Tuesday, down from 79% on Monday, with 9 of 11 units online, according to Bloomberg.
• Temperatures throughout the two-week forecast are still expected to be mostly in line with the 30-year norm of about 15C, with temperatures over 10-11 June slightly below before rising again over 12-14 June.
• Norwegian wind is anticipated to be high on 5 June at 36% load factor, or 1.91GW – potentially weighing down on power prices on the day. Wind is then forecast between 18-25%, or 0.968-1.29GW over 6-7 June.