French day-ahead power prices climbed Wednesday as nuclear generation fell and domestic demand was forecast to rise during peak times Thursday, sources said.
Baseload power for Thursday delivery was last heard before midday local time at Eur50/MWh, up Eur2.75 from Tuesday's close of Wednesday baseload.
Thursday peakload gained Eur2.50 day on day at Eur57.50/MWh.
Epex Spot settled the auction for day-ahead baseload above the OTC at Eur50.71/MWh and for peakload power at Eur58.87/MWh.
Temperatures Wednesday were forecast 2 degrees Celsius above the seasonal high/low of 14/7 C and seen steady Thursday, according to CustomWeather.
Peak demand in hour 12:00 reached 60.9 GW Wednesday, up 1.2 GW day on day, and was expected to increase to 61.3 GW during the same peak hour Thursday, according to RTE.
On the supply side, nuclear generation was down 1 GW day on day to 47.5 GW in hour 12:00, RTE data showed.
Nuclear output fell after EDF unexpectedly removed its 900 MW Cruas-3 nuclear reactor from the grid Wednesday morning. According to a note on the company website, the reactor will return to the grid Thursday at 11:51 am local time.
EDF had also removed its 900 MW Blayais-4 reactor from the grid for unplanned maintenance Sunday afternoon. The reactor's return was delayed for a third time Wednesday and it was now expected to come back online November 5.
Combined wind and solar output was down 900 MW day on day in hour 12:00 at 2.8 GW, according to RTE.
On Thursday, wind and solar output was due to increase, by about 600 MW during peak times, according to spotrenewables.com.
