Europe's weekly wind down sharply at 15-week low, YTD trails by 22 TWh

London — European weekly wind power generation plunged 32% week-on-week to 6.1 TWh in the seven days to March 7, data aggregated by WindEurope showed.

The 36.2 GW weekly average was the lowest in 15 weeks and the lowest for a first-quarter week in the past three years.

Year-to-date, wind output across Europe of 89 TWh is down 22 TWh year on year.

On March 3, daily wind production of 607 GWh covered only 6.7% of demand.

That compares to 27% on Jan. 21 when daily wind hit a record 2.7 TWh, the data show.

European wind has averaged 57 GW so far in 2021 compared to a 70 GW average at this stage in 2020.

However, wind production was forecast to rise sharply this week.

Spotrenewables.com pegged average German wind above 40 GW for March 11 and March 12.

Combined with solar, peakload average wind/solar was forecast above 50 GW for March 12, sending a bearish signal to spot prices with March 12 baseload trading at Eur21/MWh on EEX.

That compares to a Eur51/MWh German day-ahead average so far this year, exchange data show.

Europe's installed wind capacity reached 219.5 GW by end-2020 of which over 200 GW is in the EU27 and the UK.