Germany's clean spark spread expanded to roughly +€30/MWh gross on 22 June, the widest positive reading of the 2026 cycle. A combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant burning gas at TTF, paying €78 per tonne for carbon and clearing power at €124.09 is comfortably in merit 1. The spark measures the margin a gas plant earns after fuel and carbon costs; when it turns positive, generators want to burn.
Two weeks earlier the same plant was losing €44/MWh and shutting down . The reversal began on 17 June, when power jumped and the spark flipped from minus 44 to plus 15 , then extended further this week. What changed structurally is that EDF ran its French nuclear fleet without curtailment, letting Germany's thermal stack reset the continental clearing price .
The 22 June German day-ahead print of €124.09/MWh jumped about 49% day-on-day, so one reading should not carry the structural case alone 2. A low-wind, low-solar day lifts the gas stack up the merit order and flatters the spark; the figure needs a week of confirmation before anyone calls it a regime. The spread has nonetheless held positive on a multi-day basis since 17 June, reversing the minus 8 to minus 9 readings of early June .
Positive spark economics put commercial gas-for-power demand back into direct competition with the mandated injection operators. The injectors cannot out-bid a profitable generator for the same prompt molecules without widening their own losses, so cheap gas now drains the supply the November fill target depends on.
