London — Wind and solar generation surged to over 100 GW across Europe over the weekend, driving hourly prices into negative territory in Germany, Denmark and Belgium, TSO and exchange data show.
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Register NowSaturday bore the brunt of stormy weather across Northwest Europe, with 1.4 TWh generated, according to WindEurope, as over 60 GW of wind and 40 GW of solar combined midday.
In Germany, Saturday peakload power (08:00 am-08:00 pm) settled at minus Eur2.77/MWh on Epex Spot with hour 15 lowest at minus Eur49.62/MWh.
Winds eased Sunday with just over 1 TWh generated across NWE, but solar stepped up, peaking at 51 GW across Europe Sundaymidday.
Negative prices in Germany's day-ahead auction for Sunday were limited to hours 12 to 18 falling as low as minus Eur35.75/MWh.
Overall, German wind and solar output averaged 29 GW throughout the weekend, TSO data aggregated by Fraunhofer ISE show.
Weekend hourly prices averaged around Eur13/MWh on Epex Spot.
Curtailment of German wind power hit a record 3.2 TWh in the third quarter.
Last year, RES curtailment fell 2% on year to 5.4 TWh, but compensation rose to Eur635 million after already doubling in 2017.
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France avoided negative hourly prices this weekend as happened during similar high wind weekends in the spring.
French nuclear output ramped down to 28 GW from 37 GW during afternoon hours with French wind/solar peaking at 14 GW, TSOand exchange data show.
Ramping up, nuclear rose by over 6 GW within two hours on Sunday evening, hourly RTE data show.
-- Andreas Franke, andreas.franke@spglobal.com
-- Edited by Jonathan Dart, jonathan.dart@spglobal.com