Europe's weekly wind production up 26% to highest since March

London — European wind power generation rebounded 26% week-on-week to average 56.3 GW in the seven days to Oct. 25, the highest since early March, data aggregated by WindEurope showed.

Wind generation over Oct. 1-25 averaged 53 GW, up 17% from October 2019, and up 43% from September when wind averaged only 37 GW.

Europe's fleet of turbines had produced over 1 TWh for 18 of the first 25 days of October.

Hourly power prices turned negative overnight this weekend (Oct. 24-25) across much of Northwest Europe, with Belgium and the Netherlands the lowest at minus Eur8/MWh for hour 5, Epex Spot data showed.

Storm Barbara hit France hard with wind output peaking at a record 13 GW on Oct. 21 midday, TSO data show.

In Germany, week 43 baseload spot power rebounded above Eur41/MWh with October to date still averaging below Eur35/MWh, over 20% below September's average.

Wind was forecast to remain around average for the time of year with focus switching again to the North Sea and calmer conditions further south with spotrenewables.com pegging German average wind above 20 GW for Oct. 27-29, falling to 8 GW by Oct. 31.

Year-to-date wind generation of 333 TWh averages 46 GW, some 4 GW above last year's average to week 43.