Nordic Power – Forecasts Suggest Wetter Outlook

The Nordic July power base-load contract closed yesterday at €25.35/MWh. Prices are likely to receive some support from the German market today amid some gains in European natural gas prices, while forecasts for wetter weather will likely weigh on front curve futures.

• TTF front month is edging higher today with no clear direction as supply risks from strong Asia demand and Russia supply are weighed against healthy storage levels and a cooling weather forecast.
• The latest ECMWF forecast suggested temperatures will ease back from 28 June, remaining above the seasonal normal until 2 July, before being broadly in line with the average. Forecasts for precipitation have been further revised up for this week with rainfall to rise to 6.88mm on 28 June and to 9.01mm on 1 July, above the seasonal normal.
• Nuclear availability in the Nordics rose to 80% as of Wednesday, up from 78% on Tuesday, Bloomberg data showed, citing Fingrid data.
• In Finland, unplanned works at Olkiluoto 3 continue to reduce capacity until 5 July due to power supply issues.
• The unplanned outage at Olkiluoto 1, reducing capacity by 110MW, has been extended by one day until 27 June.
• In Sweden, the unplanned outage at Vattenfall’s 565MW Ringhals Block4 nuclear reactor has been extended until 2 July, from 27 June previously scheduled.
• Vattenfall’s 1.04GW Forsmark 1 nuclear reactor will have intermittent reduced capacity between 26 August and 15 September due to tests, remit data showed. Unavailable capacity will range from 0-1040MW.
• In Norway, wind output is forecast at 592MW to 1.76GW during base load between 27 June and 5 July according to SpotRenewables.
• In news, Nasdaq has cancelled plans to transfer its Nordic power trading and clearing business to EEX according to a statement.