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 merit1. 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 alone2. 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.
