POWER: Poland's March Continues Ascent, Spot to Remain Elevated Next Week

Poland’s March climbed for the second consecutive session to reach a fresh high on the back of upward price moves in European coal and EU ETS, with temperatures in Warsaw mostly below the seasonal average throughout the 6-10 day ECMWF forecasts. Polish wind over 10-14 February will be between 7-20% load factors- which could keep prices elevated over the period.

• Poland’s March baseload power settled at PLN467.33/MWh compared to its settled price of PLN450.75/MWh on 5 February, according to data on Polish power exchange TGE.
• The contract reached a fresh all-time high, surpassing its previous high on 5 February.
• EUA DEC 25 up 1.8% at 82.54 EUR/MT
• Rotterdam Coal MAR 25 up 0.1% at 105.7 USD/MT at 13:41 GMT
• The March contract traded 6 times in 8 lots from 16 lots exchanged in the previous session. This is the lowest amount of liquidity since 29 January, when no volumes were traded.
• The contract opened at PLN460/MWh – the daily low – before steadily rising to a daily high of PLN470/MWh.
• Average temperatures in Warsaw are still seen on a general downward trend throughout the 6-10 day ECMWF forecasts to flip below the seasonal average on 8 February and remain below until 20 February. Minimum temperatures are seen dropping to -8.7C on 20 February.
• Closer in, the day-ahead dropped to PLN545.06/MWh for Friday delivery from PLN653.66/MWh for Thursday as wind is expected to rise to 31% load factor tomorrow from 11% today.
• Looking slightly ahead, wind will then be at a 41% load factor on 8 February (Sat) – likely dropping prices from the previous session coupled with typically weekend demand.
• The unplanned outage at Poland’s 910MW Jaworzno 2 coal plant has been increased to 834MW from 434MW and is now expected to end on 7 February, however, one day earlier than previously planned.