21SEP

German power hits €195 on dead wind

2 min read

15:34UTC

Germany's day-ahead power cleared €195.00/MWh for 30 June, a 2026 high for the date, as the year's lowest wind week collided with a summer heat surge.

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Key takeaway

Record-low week-26 wind left thermal plants to set German power at €195, a 2026 high.

Germany's day-ahead power cleared €195.00/MWh for 30 June delivery, a 2026 high for the date, as a summer heat surge ran straight into the year's weakest wind⁠¹. The country logged its lowest wind generation of 2026 in week 26, the seven days to 28 June, a record rather than a passing lull⁠².

Day-ahead power is the wholesale price set the afternoon before delivery, and on a high-renewable grid like Germany's it usually falls when the wind blows. Week 26 removed that cap. With wind near zero and cooling demand climbing, every incremental megawatt came from gas and coal units, whose marginal cost stacks fuel on carbon and sets the clearing price for the whole market.

With renewables gone from the stack, the clearing price tracked the thermal merit order straight up. The 17 June repricing had already driven German day-ahead 59% higher when wind briefly dropped out; week 26 delivered the same condition in summer, with wind at a 2026 low compounding the heat load rather than relieving it. The print answers a season-long question: a €195 day-ahead normally crowds injection out of the market, yet Germany kept filling storage through it, because at today's prompt gas the caverns and the turbines can both be served.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Germany gets a large share of its electricity from wind turbines. When the wind blows strongly, electricity is cheap because wind power has no fuel cost. But in the week ending 28 June 2026, German wind output fell to its lowest of the year. At the same time, a summer heat wave raised demand for air conditioning. With wind absent and demand high, Germany had to rely on gas-fired power plants to generate most of its electricity. Gas plants have fuel costs: they burn gas (at €40-44 per megawatt-hour) and must buy EU carbon pollution permits (at €80 per tonne). Those costs add up to about €120-130 per megawatt-hour just to generate. Since Germany had no cheap alternatives, the market clearing price jumped to €195 per megawatt-hour, meaning electricity buyers paid €195 for every megawatt-hour they used that day. Germany completed its nuclear phase-out in April 2023, removing the main low-cost backup that would previously have capped the price during wind droughts.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Germany's April 2023 nuclear phase-out removed approximately 12 GW of price-suppressing zero-carbon baseload that had previously anchored the merit order during wind droughts: Isar 2, Emsland, and Neckarwestheim 2 collectively represented roughly €20-30/MWh of price headroom at typical demand levels, headroom that no longer exists.

The Gesetz zur Reduzierung und zur Beendigung der Kohleverstromung (coal phase-out law) reduced lignite and hard coal online capacity in the Rhineland and Lusatia regions progressively from 2020 onward, removing the secondary dispatchable layer that had historically capped CCGT dominance during wind droughts. By June 2026, the combined effect of both phase-outs left CCGT as the effective price-setting unit in the German merit order whenever wind falls below 30-35% of installed capacity.

Week 26 of 2026 delivered the lowest wind output of the year coincident with a summer heat surge that raised cooling demand. Those two conditions simultaneously removed the renewable supply cap from the merit order and raised load. At €40-44 TTF and €80 EU Allowances (EUA), the CCGT marginal cost ran approximately €120-130/MWh, leaving a €65-75/MWh rent for operators but confirming that the only bidders at the margin were gas-fired.

What could happen next?

Risk
Without the StromVKG capacity market delivering contracted dispatchable capacity before 2028-2030, Germany faces repeated EUR 150-200/MWh day-ahead prints during any extended wind drought, because CCGT remains the only available dispatchable option at the margin.
Consequence
The EUR 195 print, occurring simultaneously with EUR 40-44 gas, confirms that high German power prices in 2026 are driven by dispatchable capacity absence rather than high fuel costs: the same merit order produces EUR 195 clearing even when gas is cheap.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Consensus view: Agora Energiewende's 2026 capacity analysis identifies week 26's €195/MWh print as the structural consequence of Germany's post-nuclear merit order: with approximately 12 GW of zero-carbon baseload removed since the April 2023 nuclear phase-out and coal capacity reducing progressively since 2020, CCGT is now the dominant dispatchable unit in the German stack, meaning gas-set marginal pricing occurs during any wind drought above a few days, even at €40-44 gas prices.

Counter-view: The Bundesnetzagentur, Germany's Federal Network Agency, has consistently argued that Germany's interconnection capacity with France (10-12 GW), Denmark (2-3 GW), and Austria (4-6 GW) provides a structural import buffer that prevents wind-drought prices from reaching crisis levels; on 30 June, French nuclear surplus was priced at €123.50/MWh and interconnectors were flowing west-to-east, suggesting that €195 reflects insufficient interconnector utilisation during the peak hours of 30 June, not an irreversible structural gap.

Key tension: Whether cross-border interconnection alone can suppress German wind-drought pricing below €150-200/MWh, or whether the Bundestag's StromVKG capacity market, with its first auction targeted for 1 September 2026, must deliver new dispatchable domestic capacity before interconnection reach hits its physical ceiling.

Sources:Montel News·euenergy.live

Mentions:Germany →CCGT →EPEX SPOT →France →Denmark →Austria →Bundesnetzagentur →Bundestag →StromVKG →

First Reported In

Update #22 · Germany refills as the autumn cliff nears

Montel News· 30 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

German spark spread flips +€15

The power market repricing trend that drove Germany's day-ahead 59% higher on 17 June extended further to EUR 195/MWh on 30 June when week-26 wind generation fell to a 2026 low, removing the renewable cap on the merit order.

Occurred 16 Jun 2026

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This Event

German power hits €195 on dead wind

With wind at a 2026 low and renewables off the stack, gas and coal units alone set German power at a year-high clearing price.

Led to

Same wind, two prices: solar sets gap

The 30 June EUR 195 print on the year's lowest-wind week is the prior instance of the high-price-on-low-wind pattern; this event refines it by isolating post-solar residual load, not wind alone, as the driver.

Occurred 31 Jul 2026

Read story →

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