HEATWAVE. NO WIND. POWER AT €180/MWh.
Sunshine usually pushes the price down.
On a sunny April day, midday PV drives the price to the floor, at times to zero or below. During the heatwave the panels did the same job, and the price still sat near €75/MWh before peaking at €180/MWh.
The difference is not the sun. It is the heat, and five things stacking up at once.
HEAT AND WIND
Heat lifts demand.
Wind was missing.
-
Air Conditioning : Midweek consumption, pushed up all day long by mass air-conditioning load
- Wind: Little to none. And that matters more than it looks, it moves the balance of the whole European market
THE COOLING LIMIT
A reactor needs a cool river.
A nuclear plant draws river water to cool itself and discharges it again. To protect fish life, that water may not go back warmer than 26°C.
IMPORT DEPENDENCE
Both neighbours were short at once.
Every country has its own backbone: wind in Germany, nuclear in France. Belgium normally imports from both directions.
Nuclear down in France and no wind in Germany means nobody has a surplus to export. That is exactly when it gets tight here.
ALL AT ONCE
Almost every way to make power, weakened.
Bar shows how much of the source was actually available.
THE PRICE SETTER
The last plant needed sets the price for all.
With cheaper capacity gone, the market has to call on coal. Marginal coal generation can bid at roughly €500-600/MWh in these conditions, weighed down by EU CO₂ costs and levies.
You can't control the weather. You can control your exposure to it.
Days like this are exactly what flexibility is for: batteries, shiftable load and a spot position that is a strategy, not an accident. We model your profile, we build it, we operate it.
