Power prices strengthen further across Europe

Despite a late downward correction in clean fuel costs after a strong opening, European power prices held gains and closed higher again on Wednesday. Prospects of a sharp drop in wind power generation (from 20 GW at the beginning of the week to 6.2 GW expected next week in Germany) and the combination of relatively high power demand and weak nuclear generation in France continued to be supportive as well. Indeed, peak power demand averaged 52.8 GW in May 2021 so far in France, up 5.2 GW yoy and down 0.8 GW compared to May 2019. But with only 36.8 GW of nuclear generation on average in May 2021, the supply gap (peak demand – nuclear generation) widened to 16 GW, compared to 14.5 GW in May 2020 and 11.6 GW in May 2019.