UK power prices across the remainder of this winter crashed lower Monday afternoon as French nuclear regulator ASN said six French nuclear plants that are currently offline for safety tests could be allowed to restart “under certain conditions” at the end of this month. January tumbled £8.50/MWh, or 14% on the day, while Q1 ’17 fell 10%. The “certain conditions” include the plants passing further short-term checks, although with ASN reportedly saying that safety tests so far had appeared “relatively convincing” and technical inspectors saying that they were “cautiously confident” that two other plants were also likely to start in early January, the market turned aggressively bearish; French electricity prices for January crumbled by more than 21% on the news. UK power prices beyond the winter were much less affected, with the Annuals all pushed lower by £1.15-£1.25/MWh.            

UK gas prices for the remainder of the winter also fell, but much less dramatically, January and Q1 ’17 slipping just over 4%, to 44.85 p/th and 44.65 p/th respectively. The gas Annuals were all generally lower by just over 1 p/th, or around 2.5%, on the day.

Will Bridge, Head of Procurement

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