Romania and Hungary have the most expensive electricity in Europe today, according to the levels registered on the day-ahead market. The demand for cooling has cut into the record solar power output, while the reduction in nuclear and gas capacities tightened the supply side.
The day-ahead market price for Romania settled on June 28 at EUR 224 per MWh, the highest mark in Europe, and next in the chart was neighboring Hungary. It registered just EUR 1 per MWh less. Notably, the levels achieved in Germany and France for today’s supply were EUR 140 per MWh and EUR 125 per MWh, respectively.
The third-highest price was in Croatia, EUR 184 per MWh, followed by Slovakia (EUR 183 per MWh), Slovenia (EUR 173 per MWh) and Italy (EUR 156 per MWh). It compares to the lowest EUR 11 per MWh in Sweden’s northernmost zone, EUR 24 per MWh for Finland and EUR 30 per MWh for Tromsø – northern Norway.
One day earlier in the same market, for delivery on Sunday, June 28, Italy was the highest, at EUR 121 per MWh. Next were Romania and Hungary, at EUR 96 per MWh each. The benchmark was lower by EUR 7 per MWh to EUR 11 per MWh in Central Europe.
Season switch brings spike in cooling demand
Importantly, weekends and holidays normally have much lower power demand. Another significant factor is that, with the current record-breaking heat wave in Europe, the consumption in the cooling segment eats into solar power production. It is a sharp contrast from this spring, when photovoltaics saturated the electricity market. They brought extremely deep negative prices and long-lasting periods near or below zero around noon, but also for several consecutive hours.
Solar power fades toward the evening peak, when prices at electricity exchanges tend to surge.
Profit.ro reported that the active dispatchable PV fleet in Romania reached just a tad below 3 GW on June 26, setting another all-time high.
Limited capacity at nuclear power plants in Romania, Hungary
One reactor at Nuclearelectrica’s Cernavodă, the country’s only nuclear power plant, is undergoing maintenance, and OMV Petrom’s gas-fired power plant in Brazi has been operating at half capacity. On top of that, wind has been weak, further limiting renewables.
As for Hungary, state-owned power utility MVM slashed the utilization level of the capacity on June 27 of one of the four reactors at the Paks nuclear power plant by 243 MW. It cited the excessive warmth of the water in the Danube river, used for cooling.
The government earlier urged households to lower their electricity consumption in the afternoon hours.
