German day-ahead power cleared near €74/MWh on 15 June, down from roughly €124 on Monday 8 June, a fall that took the clean spark spread to approximately -€44/MWh on a spread calc at the day's prints1. The clean spark spread is the margin a gas plant earns after fuel and carbon. With the gas benchmark through its floor, EUA carbon near €78/tCO2 and German day-ahead near €74, a standard combined-cycle plant (CCGT) at mid-merit efficiency runs variable costs near €119/MWh against a €74 clear, leaving it roughly €44 out of the money2.
The spread had been EUR -8 to -9 at the start of June; it widened this sharply because day-ahead fell faster than the gas-price drop cut fuel cost. The cheaper gas did not rescue CCGT economics, because the power-price collapse outran it. Germany abolished its gas storage levy on 1 January 2026 with no replacement, leaving plants to clear on market terms alone against a renewables-and-carbon stack that pushes them off-merit. CCGT load factors collapse at that margin, gas-for-power demand falls, and that demand destruction is why the prompt is selling off.
StromVKG, the capacity-payment bill, is Berlin's answer to exactly this problem. It cleared its Bundestag first reading on 11 June and now sits in the Wirtschaftsausschuss, the economics and energy committee, where the Greens have tabled an amendment demanding a credible hydrogen-conversion pathway for any plant winning a capacity contract. The bill pays plants to exist for security-of-supply rather than to run for margin.
The legislation is the admission that a grid clearing at €74 with CCGTs €44 out of the money cannot finance firm gas capacity on market terms. The Greens' hydrogen condition adds a state-aid timing risk: binding H2 criteria attached in committee could delay the September capacity auction the bill is meant to enable, which is the one downstream hinge a power desk should watch on this file.
