UK day-ahead power prices fell sharply Tuesday, extending Monday's losses as steady demand amid mild weather conditions and stable wind power forecasts weakened the prompt market.
Baseload power for Wednesday delivery was last heard trading at GBP39/MWh before the Platts 11 am London time close, down GBP1.20 after falling nearly GBP4 on Monday. The Wednesday peakload contract fell GBP2.55 to reach GBP44.45/MWh before midday.
On the exchanges, the base and peak day-ahead auction settled below the OTC price on Tuesday at GBP38.12/MWh and GBP43.50/MWh, respectively, N2EX and APX data showed.
According to National Grid, peak wind power generation Wednesday will likely remain stable at Tuesday's forecast of just shy of 6 GW, while Wednesday's peak power demand was also expected at around Tuesday's level of 50 GW.
Further on the supply side, RWE's 710 MW Didcot B gas-fired power generator was expected to ramp down production to zero from 2300 GMT for a planned outage, which was expected to end by early Wednesday morning, National Grid said.
Also, the restart of RWE's 535 MW Aberthaw coal-fired power plant, shut for a fuel supply outage in early May, has been further delayed to January 11 from December 7, the grid data showed.
At midday Tuesday, electricity generated from coal plants reached 11.9 GW, accounting for nearly 27% of the UK's power supply, while CCGT plants produced 16.7 GW, or 37% of the fuel mix, the grid said.
Nuclear power plants generated 8 GW of power, or 18% of the total, while wind farms in the UK produced 3.5 GW of power, or 8%, the grid said.
French imports into the UK were at zero at midday UK time amid a strike at French utility EDF which reduced nuclear supply in France. Dutch imports, however, remained stable at around 1 GW, or 2.2% of the total, the grid said.
