Electricity prices soar as Europe battles heatwave
Record June temperatures are fuelling demand for air conditioning and putting pressure on energy systems
Europe’s energy system has come under intense pressure with power plants forced to reduce output and wholesale electricity prices soaring as the continent battles an unprecedented June heatwave.
France, Spain and the UK have all reported record June temperatures this week, fuelling demand for air conditioning and other forms of cooling, as well as causing major transport disruption.
In France, almost 70,000 customers in Brittany were left without power after a heat-related transformer failure, while the national utility EDF also cut nuclear power generation as the heatwave increased river temperatures.
In the UK, five major gas-fired power plants were forced to reduce output as they struggled to cool when temperatures in the country reached 36C.
“What we are seeing is an aged grid and old power stations not being able to cope with fossil fuel-driven heat,” said Bruce Douglas, chief executive of the Global Renewables Alliance, of the disruption across Europe.
In Germany on Wednesday, power prices swung from €86 per megawatt-hour at midday to €566/MWh at 8pm, which is when evening demand kicks in and there is far less solar power than earlier in the day, according to data from Montel. This compared with peak prices of about €160/MWh at the same time in the evening last week.
Other countries saw similar swings, while in Britain the system operator had to spend about £1,379/MWh — about 15 times higher than typical day-ahead prices — to import power from the continent on Wednesday due to low wind speeds and high demand.
Fintan Devenney, senior energy analyst at Montel, said power demand was high across Europe, “driven in part by increased cooling load. This raises prices as increasingly expensive generators are required to run to meet rising demand.”
RTE, the French grid operator, said earlier in the week that during heatwave conditions, each additional degree of warming led to 1GW of extra consumption, driven by air conditioning.
High temperatures also lower the efficiency of solar panels and gas-fired power plants.
Charlotte Johnson, general manager of Generation Flex, the platform that controls energy assets at technology business Kraken, said the issues in the energy system this week were “a preview of the operational challenges” the continent will face as the world heats up.
France reached record national average temperatures this week, while the UK recorded its highest June temperature of 36.7C on Thursday. Temperatures are forecast to hit 40C in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic over the coming days.
Scientists say climate change is making extreme weather events, including heatwaves, more frequent and intense. Europe is the fastest-warming continent, in part because of its proximity to the Arctic where the melt of snow and ice has exposed darker ground that absorbs the sun’s rays.
Across France and the UK, schools were closed and trains cancelled as the heatwave intensified, while rail operators implemented speed restrictions over concerns steel tracks would buckle.
Simon Stiell, head of the UN’s climate change arm, told the FT that the heatwave had made clear “how ill-equipped” countries and their infrastructure were for “not just what is coming but what is already here”.
Andreas Jahn, a Berlin-based power markets expert at the Regulatory Assistance Project, an energy non-governmental organisation, said the heatwave had come at a difficult time for power infrastructure, when many of Europe’s power plants were typically undergoing maintenance.
Bountiful solar supply had kept prices relatively low during the day across many European countries but prices had spiked in the evenings when solar panels stopped working and there was high demand for electricity to power air conditioning units, he added.
He said storage was the “missing piece in the puzzle”, arguing that a broader rollout of battery technology could harness solar power to keep powering air conditioning during the night.
The record-breaking heat came as an estimated 75,000 people were in the British capital for London Climate Action Week, where discussions about power — and the shift to electricity — dominated.
Canada environment minister Julie Dabrusin told the FT that the European heatwave “put in stark relief” why countries needed to decarbonise and change their energy systems.
Environment ministers also met in Luxembourg to discuss Europe’s transition away from fossil fuels and adaptation to higher temperatures. The commission is developing a resilience strategy in the autumn.
Europe’s commissioner for climate Wopke Hoekstra told journalists: “The weather outside should point us in the direction of more ambition not less.”