French power contract jumps 193.58% on low wind and hydro

Sept 22 (Reuters) — The French day-ahead baseload power contract surged on Tuesday, as low wind and hydro power generation across the continent fuels higher prices. The French baseload spot electricity contract rose 193.58% to €160 ($183) per megawatt-hour at 0754 GMT, LSEG data showed. "When German wind is going to be low, there's not a lot of hydro supporting because we are in a quick dynamics on hydro across both the Alpine Basin and the Nordic Basin," said Alessandro Armenia, analyst at Kpler. "It's going to tighten a lot to Germany and it's going to therefore tighten a lot to all the neighboring countries and France is going to probably feel it a bit," he added. French consumption was set to edge higher at 44.1 gigawatts, wind power output was expected to fall by 1.9 GW to 2.2 GW and solar power generation was set to fall 0.2 GW to 5.6 GW. Weather agency Meteo France flagged on Monday that temperatures continued to rise and remained high, particularly in southern France along the Garonne River, where they could reach 32 to 33 degrees Celsius on Wednesday and Thursday. "The impact of low hydro output is having ripple effects across the power system. Critically low inflow levels are forcing nuclear assets to curtail," analysts at Engie's EnergyScan said in a note. French nuclear availability remained stable at 70% of total capacity. POWER/FR The German baseload equivalent contract fell 22% to €195/MWh, after soaring on Monday. Consumption in Germany is set to fall by just over 1 GW to 53.8 GW, while wind power and solar power generation were expected to rise by 1.6 GW and 2.6 GW respectively. The German 2027 baseload contract edged 0.2% higher to €127.25/MWh, LSEG data showed. "The market is rebounding this morning which could be considered a correction as yesterday's losses were possibly a bit exaggerated," EnergyScan analysts wrote. The French equivalent contract was not traded, The European carbon market's benchmark contract was down 0.2% to €86.39 a metric ton. ($1 = 0.8730 euros) (Reporting by Tristan Veyet in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak) ((tristan.veyet@thomsonreuters.com )