French prompt power prices fell Tuesday as wind generation was forecast to increase on Wednesday to just under 5 GW at peak times, shrugging off an expected rise in demand driven by slightly lower temperatures, sources said.
Baseload power for delivery Wednesday was last heard trading before the Platts 11:00 am London close at Eur27/MWh, Eur1.25 below Monday's assessment of Tuesday baseload, while Wednesday peakload erased Monday's gains, falling Eur1.75 to Eur28.75/MWh.
Epex Spot settled the auction for day-ahead baseload at Eur26.66/MWh and for peakload at Eur28.69/MWh.
Grid operator RTE forecast demand for electricity would rise Wednesday to 64.4 GW during the morning peakload hours from around 62.7 GW Tuesday.
Higher load Wednesday is likely to be driven by a 2 degrees Celsius drop in temperatures on the day in France, according to a market source. CustomWeather pegged Tuesday temperatures in Paris at 2 C above the seasonal 14/6 C high/low norm and said they would drop to 1 C below this norm Wednesday.
On the renewables side, wind output was seen at 1 GW during peakload hours Tuesday, RTE's real-time supply data showed.
Wind infeed will rise to nearly 5 GW at peak times Wednesday, according to spotrenewables.com, helping power prices shrug off the bullish influence of a drop in temperatures. In Germany, wind is due to increase by almost 10 GW on the day to near 13 GW during peakload hours Wednesday, the same source said.
