Polish TSO Draws on Evening Reserve Twice in a Week as European Power Prices Touch €500
Back-to-back reserve activations by PSE in the first week of August expose how thin Polish grid margins have become during an unusually severe summer drought.
Electricity prices across Europe spiked to €500 a megawatt-hour during early August as an intense summer drought cut river flows and suppressed nuclear and hydro output across the continent, Oilprice.com reported on Thursday (2026-08-06). In the same week, Poland's TSO PSE activated its evening power reserve for the second time, Montel reported.6,5
Twice in one week is an unusual pace. Reserve activations signal that the grid cannot clear peak-hour demand through normal market mechanisms, requiring the operator to draw on emergency capacity outside normal dispatch — and raising short-run operating costs in the process.5
The drought is the common thread. Rivers warming and drying out have cut output from nuclear plants dependent on cooling water and from run-of-river hydro, precisely when surging air conditioning demand pushes consumption to summer highs, Oilprice.com reported.6
European gas prices reflected the tightening. ICE Endex TTF front-month rose 6.78% on Thursday (2026-08-06) to settle at €55.74/MWh. German baseload power closed at €131.16/MWh, up 5.15%, according to market data. Both moves suggest gas-fired capacity is being priced into the merit order to cover the shortfall from constrained nuclear and hydro.6
Poland is not the only grid under stress this summer. Spanish TSO Red Electrica activated its SRAD demand curtailment mechanism on Wednesday (2026-07-22) for 943 MW between 22:18 and midnight CET, the second such intervention in the week ending Thursday (2026-07-23), after an unforeseen drop in wind left the system short, Montel reported.4
The UK grid was under similar pressure two months earlier. National Energy System Operator issued a second power supply warning for Friday evening (2026-06-26) as temperatures surged across Europe — a rare event in summer, when such alerts are typically a cold-weather feature, Rigzone reported.2
PSE's back-to-back reserve calls land during an already uncertain moment for Polish power traders. In late July (2026-07-23), traders called on the operator to clarify how EU changes to cross-border power trade regulations, expected to launch in November, would affect domestic operations. "What we know now is that we know nothing for sure really," the head trader at one firm told Montel. Two reserve activations in the first week of August will sharpen those questions.3
Poland's longer-term supply base is being diversified, but the changes run on a different horizon to the summer of 2026. Wind power now accounts for 14.7% of the country's energy mix, up from 0.3% two decades ago, the Economist reported. The country's offshore wind programme, the biggest energy investment in Poland's modern history, may cost more than $140 billion over 15 years.1
Gas import infrastructure is also expanding. Poland's Swinoujscie LNG terminal now handles 8.3 billion cubic metres a year, a second terminal in Gdansk is planned for 2028 with capacity for an additional 6.1bcm, and the Norway-Denmark pipeline launched in 2022 can carry up to 10bcm, according to the Economist. None of that changes PSE's position this month.1
River levels across France and central Europe will govern nuclear availability through the rest of summer, and nuclear availability in turn sets the floor under European power prices. If the drought extends into September, the reserve calls PSE logged in the first week of August may look like the beginning rather than the peak.6,5