French year-ahead power prices rose above €100 a megawatt-hour as renewed risks of US strikes on Iran pushed broader energy markets higher.
French year-ahead power futures are up by about 7% this week, tracking a surge in gas prices, according to data from EEX. The last time French prices were this high was in December 2023, when the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began to ease.
Read More: European Gas Prices Top €80 as US-Iran War Risks Ramp Up
While Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, relies heavily on gas and has borne the brunt of the war’s impact on energy markets, France’s large nuclear fleet has so far offered it some protection. But with European power markets closely interconnected and winter approaching, the effects of the conflict are increasingly feeding into longer-term contracts in the continent’s atomic powerhouse.
Nuclear generation isn’t directly affected by developments in the Middle East, yet heat-related outages this summer have lingered into September and weighed on French nuclear output. Generation in September was the lowest for that month since 2022, according to RTE data, when widespread corrosion issues affected the country’s reactor fleet.
Meanwhile, gas-fired generation was about three times the level recorded in the same month last year.
The French government is dealing with discontent over a cost-of-living crisis, with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu vowing late Wednesday to keep a lid on energy bills this winter. He called on state-owned energy giant Electricite de France SA to maximize power production · to make sure customer bills remain under control, and said France would also release diesel reserves to lower prices at the pump.
French nuclear availability stood at about 65% on Thursday, with available capacity almost 6 gigawatts lower than at the same time last year, according to Bloomberg calculations using data from grid operator RTE. German year-ahead power futures also rose on Thursday, reaching € 138.35 per megawatt-hour.