31JUL

EUA carbon slips back below €81

2 min read

09:24UTC

EU carbon closed €80.14/tonne on 16 July, down 1.26%, giving back part of the 13 July break above €81 that had been its first since February.

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Key takeaway

EUA gave back part of its €81 break, a small offset in the thermal cost stack.

EUA carbon closed €80.14/tonne on 16 July, down 1.26%, drifting back under the €81 line it had broken on 13 July for the first time since February⁠¹. An EUA is the tradeable permit a generator must surrender for each tonne of CO2 it emits under the EU Emissions Trading System, and it feeds directly into what a gas or coal plant pays to run.

The pullback stayed modest, within about a euro of the break rather than a reversal of it. Carbon slipped in the same window that German power climbed hard, so the two moved apart: one input to the thermal cost stack eased while the demand pulling on that stack intensified. For the spark and dark spreads, a softer EUA trims the marginal cost of running, a small offset against the fuel-and-demand pressure elsewhere in this briefing.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Companies that burn fossil fuels in the EU have to buy permits, called EUAs, for every tonne of carbon dioxide they emit. That permit price crept above €81 for the first time since February earlier this week, then slipped back to €80.14. It is a small move, but it matters because it is one of the two main costs, alongside the gas price, that decides whether it is cheap or expensive to run a gas power station in Europe.

What could happen next?

Meaning
The retreat under EUR 81 confirms the level is a contested band rather than an established floor, consistent with how the price has behaved since first breaking EUR 80 on 25 June.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: EUA first broke cleanly above €80 on 25 June, settling €80.73, a level the market has now tested and slipped back under repeatedly, €80.17 on 30 June, €81.35 on 13 July, €80.14 on 16 July, treating €80-81 as a contested band rather than a floor it has actually held.

Counter-parallel: The European Commission's 11 May revision to ETS free-allocation benchmarks did not touch the supply side of the market, the annual cap still falls by a fixed tonnage each year and Market Stability Reserve withdrawals keep tightening the pool of tradeable permits, so the repeated failure to hold above €81 reads as short-term noise sitting on top of a structural supply squeeze, not evidence that squeeze has eased.

Immediate impact: at €80.14/tonne, the carbon cost feeding German CCGT marginal cost via the roughly 0.52 tCO2/MWh emission factor stays close to where it has sat for weeks, so this week's €156 German day-ahead peak (elsewhere in this briefing) owes to power demand, not a carbon cost spike.

Structural: the EU ETS cap keeps tightening by design, the annual cap falls by a fixed tonnage each year and free allocation to CBAM-covered sectors is being cut 2.5% in 2026 and 5% in 2027, so a short-term drift under €81 sits within the noise of a longer structural uptrend rather than reversing it.

Sources:Trading Economics

Mentions:EUA →EU Emissions Trading System →CCGT →European Commission →

First Reported In

Update #27 · TTF hits EUR 55; the arb won't confirm it

Trading Economics· 16 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

EUA carbon breaks €81 a tonne

EUA gives back part of the 13 July break above EUR 81.

Occurred 13 Jul 2026

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This Event

EUA carbon slips back below €81

Carbon eased off its own breakout even as power surged, loosening one input to the CCGT cost stack.

Led to

German gas plants priced out of merit

EUA's EUR 80.14 close on 16 July fed into the same EUR 16 carbon floor that holds marginal cost above power revenue on 20 July.

Occurred 19 Jul 2026

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Spark stays negative, French edge erodes

EUA carbon's 16 July close under EUR 81 gave way to a fresh 22 July high.

Occurred 22 Jul 2026

Read story →

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