Heatwave and nuke plant outage push spot MWh price to record high in Romania

The average electricity on the spot (day-ahead) market in Romania reached the record of RON 645 (EUR 131) per MWh for the delivery day of July 31, on a combination of extreme heat and the unplanned outage at one of the two reactors of the country’s sole nuclear power plant.

The warm weather pushed up the electricity consumption rate at a new record (8,865MW) on July 29 for the 13:00/14:00 hourly interval, Transelectrica announced, according to Agerpres. The weather is expected to remain hot for at least a couple of days.

For the 21:00/22:00 hourly interval on July 30, the electricity was traded at RON 885 (EUR 179), which is a new record for the country, Economica.net reported. The previous record, set on July 12, was also reached in the context of Cernavoda unexpectedly closing down one of its two reactors.

The outages at Cernavoda are not related to the nuclear part of the power plant but the conventional part.

The daily average price in Romania - similar to that in Hungary, which is coupled with Romania’s power grid - is the second-biggest spot price in Europe for the day, lower only than the price in Greece (EUR 137 per MWh).

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