German Power Holds Near €98 as Weather-Driven Tightness Persists
Low wind generation and elevated gas costs have kept German baseload prices elevated, with the front-month contract near €97.63/MWh as of Friday's close.
German baseload front-month power held at €97.63 per megawatt-hour as of Friday's close (2026-06-26), sustained by a combination of weather-driven supply tightness and elevated European gas prices that has kept the forward curve flat well into summer. The next-quarter contract stood at €98.02/MWh, a signal that the market sees no meaningful near-term relief.4
The pricing follows a period of acute supply pressure that emerged in mid-May. Germany's available power margin dropped to its lowest level of the 2025-26 winter during the week of 2026-05-18, when low wind speeds coincided with colder temperatures to strain the grid, according to Bloomberg model data cited by OilPrice.com. Low-wind episodes have repeatedly pushed gas to the top of the merit order, tying German power costs directly to European hub prices.4
ICE Endex TTF front-month traded at €41.00 per megawatt-hour as of Friday (2026-06-27), compared with the €26.73/MWh at which it closed the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Elenger's Q1 market overview. The increase of more than 50% over six months reflects both cold-season demand pressure and a structural tightening in European gas balances.3
Events in the Persian Gulf drove a significant part of that structural shift. Qatar's Ras Laffan industrial complex, responsible for roughly 20% of global LNG supply, was struck in early 2026, knocking an estimated 17% of Qatar's LNG export capacity offline for three to five years, according to the Elenger analysis. The outage tightened Atlantic Basin LNG flows precisely when European storage inventories were under winter drawdown pressure.3
Analysts surveyed by Montel during the week of 2026-05-18 forecast German Q2 spot power prices could rise 17% year on year, with European gas prices 40% above Q2 2025 levels. The gas forecast centred on an average of €46.35/MWh for the quarter. With ICE Endex TTF front-month trading at €41.00 currently, gas has come in somewhat below that projection, but still sharply above year-earlier levels, maintaining the elevated floor under German power.1
Germany's storage trajectory adds a longer-horizon constraint. Speaking at Montel's German Energy Day in Dusseldorf on Thursday (2026-05-21), an analyst said Germany can likely refill storage ahead of winter but faces meaningfully higher injection costs the later the campaign begins. The spread between summer and winter gas contracts effectively prices that delay risk into the curve.2
The clearest bearish offset is solar. Peak solar season is reducing baseload's role in Germany's merit order during daylight hours, and the roughly 25% minority of bearish signals in market positioning reflects this supply-side factor. Still, solar does not cover overnight or low-radiation periods, and any sustained wind shortfall restores gas to the marginal price-setting position.4,1
NBP UK gas front-month held at €43.60/MWh as of Friday (2026-06-26), slightly above TTF, indicating that UK demand is providing cross-channel support for continental gas prices rather than acting as a release valve. The convergence limits arbitrage flows that might otherwise ease pressure on German hub pricing.
Whether solar output consistently holds power prices in the €97-99 range through the coming weeks or periods of low wind test the upside depends on Germany's meteorological summer. The underlying cost structure, with ICE Endex TTF front-month at €41 against a Q4 2025 base of below €27, leaves a firm fuel-cost floor for any baseload demand spike that outpaces renewables output.