Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged higher on Friday morning with volatile wind speeds increasing gas demand from power plants.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 was up 0.70 euros at 32.60 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $10.36 /mmbtu, by 0819 GMT, LSEG data showed.

The Dutch September contract was up 0.73 euros at 33.45 euros/MWh.

In the British market, the August contract was up 1 pence at 75.25 pence per therm.

LSEG analysts said that volatile wind speeds are expected to lead to higher demand for gas from power plants in northwest Europe, with non-local distribution zone demand (which is mainly power demand) up 33 gigawatt hours/day (GWh/d) at 1,914 GWh/day for Monday.

“This is due to volatile wind speeds, which spike up 200% then down again over a two-day period,” LSEG analyst Tim Crump said in a daily research note.

In Britain, peak wind power generation was forecast at 6.4 gigawatts (GW) for Friday, falling to 2.9 GW on Saturday, Elexon data showed.

British gas supply and demand was fairly balanced, with demand forecast at 182.8 million cubic metres/day (mcm/d) and supply forecast at 183.1 mcm/d, National Gas data showed.

In the European carbon market CFI2Zc1, the benchmark contract edged up by 0.80 euros to 67.64 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Susanna Twidale, Editing by David Goodman)