Supply Constraints and Winter Demand Lift Dutch Spot Prices Despite Softer Gas Markets

Dutch day-ahead power prices averaged €252.8/MWh in Week 45, up €19.9/MWh week-on-week. The increase was driven by tighter market fundamentals, with colder temperatures lifting demand while reduced renewable output and generation availability tightened supply. The impact of lower gas prices was more than offset by these bullish power market fundamentals. Dutch peak prices also strengthened, averaging €265.2/MWh, up €17.5/MWh week-on-week, supported by weaker solar generation across Northwest Europe, particularly in Germany.

Electricity demand increased by around 2% in both the Netherlands and Germany as temperatures declined. Cross-border capacity was constrained by the BritNed outage between 2 and 8 November, removing up to 1,016 MW of transfer capacity between the Netherlands and Great Britain. In addition, the NorNed interconnector, originally expected to return on 5 November, had its outage extended until 12 November, leaving a further 723 MW of capacity unavailable between the Netherlands and Norway. These outages reduced import opportunities and tightened the Dutch market balance.

Domestic generation availability was also limited. Eemshaven units 3, 4, 5 and 7 (approximately 356 MW each) were subject to grid restrictions from 27 October until 5 November 17:00, while Enecogen (464 MW) remained unavailable until 5 November 22:15. Combined with interconnector constraints, these outages tightened the Dutch generation stack and provided additional support to spot prices.

On the fuel side, TTF day-ahead gas averaged €92.7/MWh in Week 45, down €6.7/MWh week-on-week as broader energy markets softened on expectations of de-escalation in the Middle East. Despite lower prices, fundamentals tightened, with colder weather lifting regional power demand by 26% to 6,270 GWh/day across Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. At the same time, EU gas storage fell by 22 TWh to 72.7% fullness, leaving inventories 10 percentage points below last year and 16.7 percentage points below the five-year average, highlighting growing winter supply concerns.