French day-ahead prices softened further Thursday amid healthier nuclear supply, with wind in-feed doubling in neighbouring Germany as well, sources said.
Friday baseload was last heard trading at Eur41/MWh, Eur6.75 lower than Wednesday's assessment of Thursday baseload.
Peakload power for Friday delivery was last heard trading at Eur48.75/MWh, down Eur6 on the day.
Epex Spot settled day-ahead baseload power Eur3.53 below the OTC spot at Eur37.47/MWh and peakload power at Eur43.37/MWh, Eur5.38 below the OTC.
Auction results coming out lower than the OTC prices was also a trend noticed in November, a trader said this week, pointing out that this was briefly reversed on the first day of December, when Epex Spot settled circa Eur2 above the OTC spot.
He attributed the bearish bias of the spot to the possibility that buyers were more willing to buy in the market rather than at the auction and secure a risk premium, with November being a winter month.
Temperatures in Paris Thursday were 2 C above the seasonal 8/3 high/low norm and were due remain stable on the day, according to forecaster CustomWeather.
Demand is set to fall to 69.7 GW in peak hour 12:00 local time (CET) Friday from 69.8 GW in the same hour Thursday, according to the latest forecast from grid operator RTE.
On the supply side, nuclear output Thursday strengthened to 55.6 GW in peak hour 12:00 from 55 GW Wednesday, RTE's real-time generation data showed.
"We see lots of nuclear reactors running and there are lots of imports from Germany," a trader said.
Germany is set to send more power to France as wind infeed is set to double on the day Friday before closing in on 30 GW over the weekend, according to spotrenewables.com.
