Abundance of renewable power drives power prices to a minimum

At the beginning of last week, there was a limited amount of wind and solar generation in Northwest Europe. Towards the end of the week, the wind picked up significantly, and on Sunday, we experienced an exceptional combination of high solar and wind generation. Particularly in Germany, it was expected that wind speeds would increase significantly during the afternoon hours. This resulted in a large supply of (renewable) power while the power demand on Sunday was relatively low. As a result, we witnessed a day with extreme negative prices. At three different intervals, prices hit the minimum price of -500 €/MWh in The Netherlands. The baseload price on Sunday ended up being -89 €/MWh.
The average Dutch power price last week was 70.3 €/MWh, which was about 36 euros lower compared to the previous week.
The Dutch power prices for the upcoming months increased last week. August increased by 6 euros and closed at 99.7 €/MWh. September closed around 9 euros higher at 112 €/MWh. The gas contracts also increased. Both the contracts for August and September closed approximately 4 euros higher at 37.1 and 38.4 €/MWh, respectively. The coal prices also went up for the same months. Both increased by 8 euros and settled at 111.6 and 110.4 €/ton.
CO2 remained relatively stable, and the December 2023 contract closed only one euro higher at 89.1 €/EUA.

The contracts for next year became more expensive. The gas contract for 2024 increased by almost 2 euros and closed at 52.6 €/MWh. CO2 became slightly more expensive, rising by nearly 1.5 euros to reach 93.7 €/EUA. Ultimately, the Dutch power contract increased by nearly 5 euros and closed at 133.1 €/MWh. The spark spread for 2024 improved by 1.4 euros but remained negative at -0.9 €/MWh. The dark spread increased by 70 cents and reached 9.1 €/MWh.

Weekly changes