Spot prices rise on drop in wind, nuclear, higher French demand
FRANKFURT, Dec 19 (Reuters) -European prompt power prices rose on Thursday, as main wind power producer Germany is expected to see a sharp fall in wind generation output and French nuclear availability dropped sharply.
LSEG analysis spoke of a bullish picture, noting that falling temperatures were driving up demand in France, where many households rely on electric heating.
French over-the-counter day-ahead baseload power TRFRBD1 gained 45.5% from the close to trade at 80 euros ($83.34) per megawatt hour by 0945 GMT.
The equivalent German contract TRDEBD1 was 51.3% up at 72.3 euros/MWh.
German wind power output is projected to lose 5.4 gigawatt day-on-day, to come in at 38.8 GW on Friday, with France due to lose 5.6 GW, arriving at 8.5 GW, LSEG data showed.
French nuclear availability dropped seven percentage points to 81% of total capacity, with the Tricastin 1 and Paluel 4 reactors in short, unplanned outages and Flamanville 3 in a short, planned outage. POWER/FR
Power consumption in Germany is forecast to lose 6 GW ahead of the weekend at 55.5 GW, while demand in France is set to go up by 3.2 GW to 63.7 GW.
German year-ahead power TRDEBYZ5 edged up 0.4% at 87.5 euros/MWh.
The French 2025 baseload contract TRFRBYZ5 was untraded after a close at 67.5 euros.
European CO2 allowances for December 2025 CFI2Zc1 were 0.7% up at 65.34 euros per metric ton.
German energy statistics group AGEB said Germany is a net importer of 23.5 billion kilowatt hours of power in 2024. Exports fell by 9% and imports rose by 15%.
German carbon emissions in the year dropped by 3%, it estimated, citing the decline in coal burning, which fell by 12.5% from imported hard coal and by 10.6% from domestic brown coal.
The BDEW German utility industry group, amid a set of energy sector statistics, said national gas usage was up 3.3 in 2024.
($1 = 0.9599 euros)
Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri
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