The gas price remained fairly stable last week, but the electricity price was unstable and on the low side. A continuous supply of gas to Europe prevented major fluctuations in the gas price. At the same time, strong winds provided cheap electricity.
The price of gas has risen slightly this week. On Tuesday, June 11, gas traded for €34,29 per megawatt hour. On June 13, the price reached its highest point of the week at €35,72. On Monday, June 17, the price dropped again to €34,86.
The gas market has been fairly stable over the last week. This is the result of a constant gas supply, after weeks of problems with Norwegian exports. That is good news, because so far the filling of the reserves has not been easy. Analysts speak of an unusually slow start to the filling season. In total, only 31 terawatt hours of gas per day have been stored since March 2,1. Since 2012, the average rate at which reserves are replenished has been 2,9 terawatt hours per day. Even before the Ukrainian war, such a filling rate was unusual. Only once in the last ten years has gas reserves been replenished so slowly. Although it makes a difference that we emerged from the winter with very full reserves. As a result, at the last available measurement on June 9, reserves were still filled by 17 percentage points more than the ten-year average. However, on the other hand, the filling rate was 31 percentage points higher on March 22.
The slowdown in the rate at which reserves are being filled is mainly due to the weak American supply of LNG due to maintenance at the Freeport LNG terminal. As a result, US liquefied gas exports fell to the lowest point since August 2022. Remarkably, supplies from the United States fell below Russian gas exports, which still account for around 15% of European imports.
Favorable weather
At the moment, the gas price is again under some pressure. A favorable temperature is leading. In recent weeks it has been on the cold side in Northern European countries, which means that heating systems have been turned on here and there in Scandinavian countries, among others. The weather forecasts are now somewhat more favorable. It is hardly anywhere in Europe that cold now, but at the same time the temperatures in large parts of Europe are not so high that there is much extra gas demand to generate power for air conditioning.
Wind sets the tone on the electricity market
Meanwhile, the electricity price shot up and down considerably this week. On Tuesday, June 11, electricity traded for €61,19 per megawatt hour. It is remarkable that the lowest price of the week was not reached on Sunday 16, but Saturday 15 June. On that day, electricity traded for €17,69 per megawatt hour. The Epex reached its highest quotation on Monday, June 17, when the price rose to €87,66.
The price of electricity remains fairly favorable, since in addition to solar energy, wind also has a significant share in the energy mix. Normally, the share of wind energy drops sharply in spring and summer, while solar energy increases. This year, however, the wind continues to blow strongly, which puts pressure on the energy almost constantly, and this week was no different. In total, 32,7% of all electricity was generated by solar panels this week. Wind turbines had a share of 31,5%. As a result, a total of 64,2% of all electricity was generated from virtually free sources.
This also caused the atypical price pattern. Strong winds led to lower prices, especially on Mondays, Saturdays and Sundays. During the weekend, not only was the output of solar collectors high, but the wind turbines also did a lot of work. The wind force was particularly high on Saturday. This has the advantage that the energy was generated more consistently throughout the day, which kept the price under constant pressure and the basic price fell. On Sunday the wind was less strong, but there was slightly more solar energy. As a result, generation from renewable sources was much less efficient and the price increased.