German Power Set for More Evening Spikes as Solar Fades to Weak Wind
Montel says hot, sunny, low-wind weather next week points to sharp intraday swings in Germany, with front-month baseload biased lower.
Germany faces another week of evening power price spikes, with Montel reporting on 10 July (2026-07-10) that forecasts of hot, sunny weather and low winds will drive large intraday swings in Europe's biggest power market in the week of 2026-07-13.7
The pattern is specific and increasingly familiar. Days of strong solar output collapse into nights of weak wind generation, forcing prices from midday lows to evening highs within hours. Montel flagged that same sequence as the reason for the widening intraday range Germany has seen through the summer.7
This matters because the intraday shape, not the daily average, is where the money and the grid stress now sit. Midday solar surpluses have repeatedly pushed German spot prices below zero, while the evening ramp pulls prices sharply higher when solar drops out and wind fails to replace it. The German day-ahead baseload contract settled at €101.34 on Friday (2026-07-11).7
Negative pricing has become a fixture of the German market rather than a curiosity. Over the Easter holidays, EU spot power prices turned negative on strong green output and low holiday demand, despite high gas prices, Montel reported (2026-05-21). Germany saw its day-ahead baseload sink into negative territory across that surplus window.1
The extremes have been severe. Germany hit EUR -499.99/MWh on 1 May, and Montel reported (2026-05-21) the country would likely see similar levels again during periods of surplus renewable supply and weak demand, a situation that in certain conditions poses challenges for grid operators.2
The mirror image is just as sharp. In mid-May, German power prices rose as the system tightened, with the country's power margin set to drop to its lowest level of the winter, according to Bloomberg models cited by OilPrice (2026-05-19). Low wind speeds and colder weather were straining the system, and wind speeds dipped again that week (week of 2026-05-18).5
The wind dependency runs deeper than a single week. OilPrice noted (2026-05-19) that wind power generation ran 25% lower in October and November than in the same two months a year earlier, a swing that tightened margins across the autumn.5 When wind underdelivers, thermal plant sets the marginal price, and the evening peak is where that bites hardest.
For traders, the read is a bearish average with a fat right tail. The consensus leans bearish on German front-month baseload, weighted entirely to the downside on solar-heavy, low-demand days. But an average that sits low tells you little about the intraday spread, and it is the spread that a heatwave with dead wind will blow out.7
The carbon channel is the second-order effect worth tracking. When wind fails and thermal generation fills the evening gap, gas- and coal-fired units burn more, lifting EUA demand even as baseload averages soften.5 Any sustained shift toward thermal running through the evening peak feeds the European carbon complex.
There is a policy backstop underneath all of this. The European Commission approved Germany's plan to provide up to EUR 3.8bn to lower electricity costs for energy-intensive companies over three years, Montel reported (2026-04-16).6 That cushions industrial consumers but does nothing to flatten the underlying solar-to-wind volatility that creates the price extremes.
Germany has spent around $200 billion over two decades to build out cleaner electricity, and the negative-price episodes are one visible cost of that buildout running ahead of storage and grid flexibility.3 The renewables share has not moved in a straight line either; it slipped from 46% of German generation in 2020 to 42% in 2021, a reminder that a bad wind year can reverse a decade of trend.4
The signal to watch next week (week of 2026-07-13) is the evening ramp itself: how high the peak climbs once solar rolls off and whether wind forecasts firm up or stay weak. If the low-wind call holds, expect the intraday range to widen further, with midday lows testing negative territory and evening peaks well above the daily average.7 The daily print will look soft. The hourly curve will not.