The European power spot prices remained overall stable yesterday amid little change in fundamentals. The day-ahead prices averaged 203.56€/MWh in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, +1.03€/MWh day-on-day.
After a bearish morning that drove prices as low as 77.55€/t, the EUAs strongly rebounded on Thursday afternoon on bullish news from the gas market. The EUA Dec.22 eventually closed at 80.56€/t, +0.55€/t day-on-day.
Despite a similar late gas-led recovery, the power forward prices posted losses along most of the curve with only the French and German February and March contracts managing to close above the previous day’s settlements.
In other news, EDF revised its nuclear output target for 2022 from 330-360TWh to 300-330TWh, below 2020’s already historically low 335TWh production. According to the official press release from the French utility, this downward revision is a consequence of the outage extensions at the Civaux 1&2, Chooz 1&2 and Penly 1 units. The power prices are surging on the news this morning, with the French Q2 and Q3 2022 contracts already presenting a 16% increase from yesterday’s close.
In the meantime, the French government decided to raise the ARENH volume available by 20TWh in 2022 in a measure aiming at dampening the impact of the sky-rocketing energy prices on consumers. EDF would sell the additional volume at a price of 46.20€/MWh to ensure “a fair remuneration” of the production according a statement from the French energy ministry late on Thursday (the “usual” 100TWh of ARENH volume being sold at a regulated price of 42€/MWh). The ministry expected the measure to cost around 2b€.
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