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Iran Conflict 2026
23JUL

Friday's German spark briefly broke even

2 min read
19:27UTC

At the top of the war premium the German clean spark spread printed plus €4.81/MWh at 58 per cent efficiency and minus €1.16 at 55 per cent. It was the only near-breakeven print of the cycle.

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ConflictAssessed
Key takeaway

Friday's near-breakeven print sets the fleet's break-even power price near €126 to €132/MWh.

German gas plants came within a euro or two of paying their way on 24 July, the Friday the war premium peaked. On day-ahead power at its window high of €130.97/MWh, with TTF near its high and EUA carbon at €83.40/tonne, the clean spark spread printed plus €4.81/MWh at 58 per cent thermal efficiency and minus €1.16 at 55 per cent.⁠1⁠2 It is the only near-breakeven reading this desk has calculated all cycle.

German onshore wind ran 2.97 GW that Friday, its weekly low, the same condition that drove German power to €195/MWh at the end of June.⁠3 The CCGT fleet was called, and for a few hours it was paid for being called.

Keep the number, because it calibrates everything since. On those Friday inputs the fleet's break-even power price sits somewhere around €126 to €132/MWh across the efficiency band. Drop the gas price to Monday's level and that break-even falls to roughly €117 to €123. German day-ahead cleared well under €80. So of the roughly €40 to €46 the spread has lost since Friday, only about €5 came from the fuel side. The rest is the revenue leg, and the revenue leg answers to a weather forecast rather than to a ceasefire.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

For one day only, on Friday 24 July, a German gas power station could just about break even, or make a tiny profit, running flat out. That happened because the price of electricity was unusually high that day, at the same time as very little wind was blowing. As soon as the wind picked back up over the following weekend, that brief window closed, and gas plants went back to losing money on every unit they generated.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The near-breakeven window existed only because three inputs peaked together for one session: TTF near its cycle high, EUA at its cycle high, and German onshore wind at its weekly low of 2.97 GW, removing the cheap-renewables competition that normally caps the price gas-fired plant can capture.

Any one of those three easing, which is what happened within 72 hours, removes the condition entirely; the breakeven was never a new floor for the fleet's economics, it was three separate extremes landing on the same day.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    The 24 July near-breakeven print required three separate extremes (peak gas, peak carbon, weekly-low wind) to align, which is why it lasted a single session rather than becoming a sustained condition.

Sources:SMARD / Bundesnetzagentur via Fraunhofer ISE energy-charts·Investing.com
Mentions:Germany →TTF →EUA →CCGT →EDF →
First Reported In

Update #30 · Wind, not peace, sank the German spark

SMARD / Bundesnetzagentur via Fraunhofer ISE energy-charts· 27 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
This Event
Friday's German spark briefly broke even
Friday's print fixes the fleet's break-even power price, which is the number every later spread reading is measured against.
Led to
German gas plants back in profit
German gas plants had already come close to break-even at the 24 July war-premium peak before this positive spark.
Occurred 30 Jul 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Wang Yi
Wang Yi
China's foreign minister and Djibouti's issued a joint communique on 21 October saying the war should not reach the Horn of Africa and stressing free navigation through Bab al-Mandeb. The text names neither Iran nor the Houthis, and Djibouti hosts China's only overseas military base, opposite the Yemeni coast.
Ministry of External Affairs
Ministry of External Affairs
India's foreign ministry called the attacks on Saudi civilian and energy sites "unacceptable" on 22 October and said they must stop at once. An Indian died at Dammam, Indians were injured there and at Shaybah, and about 4,000 Umrah pilgrims remain stranded by one MP's count.
Iraq
Iraq
Iraq closed the al-Sheeb crossing with Iran to travellers and trucks from 21 October and said other crossings would close gradually. Unlike September's closure, which ended on a staged timetable, this one has none, and Iran's interior ministry said it received no notice.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Egypt's president said on 21 October that Cairo's support would "defend Saudi territory, and does not include an attack on Yemen". Araghchi warned that Egyptian involvement would further complicate the situation, and Cairo's limit matches the one Ankara set on 8 October against attacking another state's soil.
UK Ministry of Defence
UK Ministry of Defence
The MoD said on 20 October that RAF Typhoons over Saudi Arabia will not strike the Houthis, but extended tanker support to Saudi operations including against Houthi targets in Yemen. The tanker line sets no limit on strikes, so British aircraft may now refuel Saudi jets on bombing runs.
Turkey
Turkey
Ankara sent the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement to parliament around 20 October, and its published text treats an attack on one party as an attack on all. Article 16 brings it into force only on the last ratification, so the 5 October invocation in Riyadh could not yet bind Turkey.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.