French day-ahead baseload power prices rose to Eur40/MWh in OTC trading Wednesday for the first time since late April as warmer weather lifted demand.
Also, supply was seen tighter due to a plant outage and reduced renewables forecasts across the CWE region, sources said.
Baseload power for day-ahead delivery was last heard OTC Eur1.25 higher day on day at Eur40/MWh, the highest day-ahead OTC close since April 28.
Day-ahead peakload last traded OTC Eur1.75 higher at Eur47/MWh, the highest since March 26, Platts data showed.
Epex Spot settled Thursday just above OTC at Eur40.47/MWh baseload and Eur47.58/MWh peakload, just below Wednesday's surprisingly high peakload settlement price.
French nuclear availability for Thursday was pegged higher day on day at 47.5 GW, while actual nuclear production on Wednesday peaked at 46.3 GW at 09:15 am local time, RTE data showed.
Hydro production peaked at 7.4 GW during the morning rush, it added.
Fossil-fueled output dropped with coal peaking at 1.5 GW and gas at 1.1 GW, almost 1 GW below Tuesday's combined fossil-fuel output peaks, the data showed.
The 600 MW Emile Huchet 6 coal-fired plant will remain unavailable until Friday following an unplanned outage overnight due to a fault in the boiler and steam generator section, plant operator E.ON France said Wednesday.
Peak power consumption was forecast to be 55.5 GW Thursday lunchtime, after peaking at 55.1 GW Wednesday 12:45 local time, 0.4 GW below the day-ahead forecast, RTE data showed.
