Lagos — Record solar power generation and the second highest wind output ever recorded were key characteristics of the European electricity market in the third quarter this year, according to a new report from energy market intelligence provider Montel Analytics.
The study showed that solar generation in Europe across the quarter totalled 94.0 TWh – the largest on record. This also represents a 15% increase from Q3 2023. The biggest contributors were Germany, Italy and Spain, which generated 24.8TWh, 16.9TWh and 9.7TWh respectively.
Meanwhile, wind output totalled 104.7TWh in this period – the second highest on record and the biggest volume recorded in any Q3 period. The figure in the most recent quarter represented a 2% increase on Q3 2023 and a 20% increase on Q3 2022. The main contributors were Germany (24.6TWh), Britain (16.7TWh) and Spain (12.3TWh).
Increased wind and solar generation, along with a lack of demand-side response mechanisms, meant that the number of instances when day-ahead prices dropped to zero or below continued to climb in many countries, including Finland, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. This came after Spain and Portugal saw negative prices for the first time in the first six months of the year.
The report also showed that nuclear-powered generation made up over a quarter of total output – the highest recorded in Montel’s dataset. This record was driven primarily by the gradual return of French nuclear units which had gone offline in 2022 for maintenance, and a decline in fossil fuel generation to its second lowest level on record as countries sought to produce more of their power from cleaner sources.
Despite periods of volatility, gas prices continued their upward trend, with the average TTF price of €35.20/MWh marking an 11% rise on the Q2 average of €31.49/MWh and a 28% increase on the Q1 average of €27.49/MWh. The upward trend in the latest quarter was driven by various factors including tensions in the Middle East, potential disruption of Russian gas flows through Ukraine, ongoing maintenance at the Norwegian gas fields, and Hurricane Beryl’s landfall in Texas which caused an extended outage at the second-largest US liquid nitrogen gas (LNG) export terminal.
Jean-Paul Harreman, director at Montel Analytics – which is part of Montel – said:
“The rise in solar and wind generation is a continuation of a long-term trend in Europe. In recent times this region has seen a massive over-supply of power from these sources, which has led to more occurrences of negative prices. As renewables displace conventional power during the solar peak, the demand for fossil fuel generation and imports has significantly widened the price gap between the solar peak and evening peak.”
“This trend continued into Q3 2024, with large increases in the number of negatively priced hours in Finland (337), Sweden zones 1-3 (290), the Netherlands (217) and Germany (204). Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal have seen well over 700 hours so far this year, where power had zero or even negative value in the day-ahead market. This trend is worrying for renewable developers as the hours with the lowest value are generally the hours that see the highest renewable generation.”
“France drove the recovery in nuclear generation after seeing output from this source decline over the past two years. This was the key reason why nuclear generation across Europe rose to 163.6TWh in the third quarter this year – the highest proportion of total generation on record and an increase of 9.6TWh and 29.2TWh versus Q3 2023 and Q3 2022 respectively.”
Renewables (biomass, hydro, wind, solar and waste) accounted for 50.8% of overall European power generation in the third quarter of 2024. Nuclear (25.3%), gas (13.4%), coal/lignite (10.2%) and oil (0.3%) made up the rest.
