April peakload power prices below baseload on solar highs, demand lows: Epex Spot

London — European peak power prices in daily spot auctions organized by Epex Spot dropped below baseload prices in April except in Great Britain, the Paris-based market operator said Wednesday.

Epex Spot's day-ahead baseload price is the mean of all hours in a day or month, while the peakload price is the mean of hours between 8 am and 8 pm CEST (0600-1800 GMT) on working days.

"Low demand was met by strong generation during peak hours, such as high solar generation," Epex Spot director public and regulatory affairs Wolfram Vogel said, adding that such a market result was rare.

A total of 197 hours of negative prices across the six markets were recorded, with Germany accounting for 47 of them.

Great Britain, where April baseload averaged above peakload, registered 16 hours of negative prices.

Most negative prices were during early afternoon hours with solar generation above 50 GW across those markets and close to 80 GW across Europe on sunny days, according to TSO data.

Hourly prices in Italy and Spain can only drop to zero.

Price convergence in the flow-based market-coupled CWE region (Germany, France, Austria, Benelux) fell to 32% compared with 54% in April 2019.

Belgium recorded the lowest hourly price in any day-ahead auction of minus Eur115.31/MWh for hour 15 on April 13 (Easter Monday).

In France, intraday fell to minus Eur250.10/MWh for 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm on April 20.

Germany registered minus Eur123.08/MWh for the last quarter hour in hour 14 on April 13.

Overall, short-term power trading volumes in April rose 4.6% on the year to 50.4 TWh with volumes in Great Britain up most (27.5%), Epex Spot said.

Intraday accounted for 8.4 TWh, up 8% on year with a new record set at the German intraday auction.

April day-ahead average power prices (Eur/MWh)

Source: Epex Spot