Electricity, wholesale prices rise in Italy: on Monday, August 3, the average daily value reached 197.71 euros per megawatt-hour, the highest since January 2023. On Sunday, the value was 165.39: in twenty-four hours it increased by 19.5% and during the day it reached a maximum of 305 euros. The value forecast for Tuesday, August 4 is slightly down to 194.94 euros per MWh.
Read more Inclusion allowance, 67% of beneficiaries in the South
Ask the Sun
The questions are automatically suggested by 24Ore AI
based on the content viewed.
“August opened with wholesale electricity prices skyrocketing,” confirms Davide Tabarelli, president of Nomisma Energia. “There are various factors influencing this trend – he explains -. The first is the price of gas, which has risen during the summer, and which continues to provide most of the electricity production in Italy, setting the marginal price for most sources (for example renewables, editor’s note) in the relevant fifteen-minute intervals. There is currently some difficulty for Italian combined cycle gas plants, struggling with the scarcity of water needed to cool the plants, although there do not seem to be any shutdowns.”
The demand peak
“This situation – Tabarelli continues – fits into a struggling European context, with a capacity shortage starting from France, from which we import most of the energy, pushing prices up. In a dynamic where demand remains high. In Italy, the difference between wholesale price and production cost for gas plants has jumped these days to 50 euros per MWh. There is a peak in demand for air conditioning, due to temperatures above the seasonal average by more than 5°C. Added to this is still good industrial demand despite the holiday period with an evident postponement, unlike in the past, of the closure of many activities.”
“Hydroelectric production is also at lows these days throughout Europe,” Tabarelli further testifies, hoping that what happened in Hungary with the Paks nuclear plant, completely stopped due to the scarcity of Danube water, does not happen in France: “Otherwise, there will be worse problems with prices.” Also in Romania, again due to the low level of the Danube, two reactors at the Cernavoda plant have been shut down.
What is happening in France
Nuclear production has the same cooling problem that also limits gas plants. At the most difficult moment of the heat wave, over nine gigawatts spread over twelve French reactors underwent reductions or shutdowns, a power equal to about 15% of the country’s nuclear capacity.
Read more Iran déjà vu: all of Trump’s bluff attacks (and backtracks)
