Electricity prices in Europe are reaching record highs, forcing the largest aluminum casting company to limit its activities, Bloomberg writes.
Electricity with supplies rose another 6.5 percent next year to an unprecedented peak in Germany, the largest market on the Old Continent. France, which normally exports electricity, will have to import from neighboring countries due to a temporary shutdown of nuclear power in the coldest months of the year.
The situation is so dire that it is forcing factories to reduce their activities or even close down. Aluminum Dunkerque Industries France limited production due to high prices, and Nyrstar suspended temporarily in the first week of January. Romanian fertilizer manufacturer Azomures is also temporarily shut down.
Last week, EDF announced it would shut down four reactors, which account for 10 percent of France’s nuclear capacity. Thus, in early January, 30 percent of France’s nuclear capacity will be offline, increasing the need for gas, coal and oil.
After a 25 percent rise on Tuesday, electricity prices in Germany reached € 335. There is speculation that the increase is also driven by traders who close short positions due to increased capital requirements from stock exchanges.
In France, supplies are scarce and the country is forced to use oil. The shortage is so severe that electricity for February is trading at € 1,000 per megawatt-hour.
Meanwhile, the average price of electricity on European energy exchanges on Wednesday rose to a new record peak of € 409.69 per megawatt-hour (MWh), while in Bulgaria it rose by 23% to a historic high of € 421.59 per MWh, according to data on the energylive.cloud platform, quoted by BNR.
Another serious rise in the price of natural gas on Tuesday by nearly 10 percent contributed to the rise in energy prices.
The price of gas in Europe rose by about 10%, rising for the first time in history over $ 2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to the London Stock Exchange ICE.
The price of the January futures of the Dutch gas hub TTF also rose by nearly 10% to a record price level of about 172 euros per MWh.
The new rise in gas prices is due to the information that Russian supplies to Germany through the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline have been suspended and even reversed from west to east.
This also causes the price of electricity in Europe to rise further
In the market segment “within the day” of the IBEX, the weighted average electricity price reached BGN 755.96 per MWh on Tuesday (December 21st), with the largest volumes of traded electricity taking place in a wide price range between 657 and 949 BGN per megawatt hour.
Since the beginning of the year, the average price of electricity in our country is BGN 209.59 per megawatt-hour, and since the beginning of December BGN 470, according to data from the energylive.cloud platform.
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