Germany aims to build 10 GW of gas-fired power plants in the short term

Last week, we saw the wind in Northwest Europe sharply decrease after Tuesday. As a result, a lot of gas and coal-fired power plants had to start up on both Wednesday and Thursday, leading to prices rising in the evening and morning to as much as 135 €/MWh. Remarkably, France was much cheaper than both the Netherlands and Germany. Limited demand combined with a lot of wind throughout the week meant that nuclear energy was often the marginal fuel type, resulting in the French baseload being 51.7 €/MWh on Wednesday, for example, compared to 88.7 €/MWh in Germany. The Dutch spot price averaged 65.8 €/MWh last week. The day-ahead gas price remained relatively stable throughout the week but ultimately dropped by 60 eurocents to 28 €/MWh. The gas price for the coming months decreased by almost 2 euros. So, the contracts for March and April closed at 27.1 and 27.3 €/MWh respectively. Remarkably, CO2 also significantly fell last week and dipped below 60 €/EUA for the first time. The contract for December 2024 ultimately dropped by almost 5 euros to 58.8 €/EUA. Partly due to the decrease in CO2 and gas prices, we saw the Dutch power price drop for the coming months. Both March and April closed 6 euros lower at 63.6 and 57 €/MWh respectively. The spark spreads for the same months barely moved and remained negative. The spark spread for March stayed around -9 €/MWh, the spark spread for April remained at -16 €/MWh

Germany intends to hold a tender for 10 GW of gas-fired power plants. Last year, there were talks of holding a tender for 15 GW of gas-fired capacity and an additional 8.8 GW of hydrogen capacity to potentially achieve a complete phase-out of coal-fired power plants by 2030 instead of 2038. In the short term, four tenders will now be held for 2.5 GW of gas-fired power plants that can also run on hydrogen. Between 2035 and 2040, these plants must fully switch to hydrogen. Building additional plants is necessary to ensure security of supply as coal-fired power plants will disappear and more renewable capacity is being built. Germany aims to implement a capacity mechanism from 2028.
For 2025, the gas price dropped by 3.5 euros, and the TTF contract closed at 29.6 €/MWh. CO2 dropped by almost 5 euros to 60.9 €/MWh. The Dutch power price decreased by almost 7 euros and closed the week at 73 €/MWh. The spark spread for next year improved by almost 2 euros and was -5.3 €/MWh.