The price of electricity on the Romanian day-ahead market (DAM) hit RON 630 (EUR 134) per MWh for the delivery date of January 16, during 17:00 to 18:00, marking a new record for the past two years, local Economica.net reported.

The price paid on January 16 during the one-hour period is only 7% below the all-time record.

Indeed the prices on the spot market are not directly relevant for the end-users (but mainly for suppliers, and among them for those taking short or long positions). Accumulation of high prices on the spot (DAM) market will predictably result in expectations, self-fulfilled or backed by fundamentals, for higher prices in the longer-term contracts.

On the upside, the DAM price averaged for the whole day of January 16 is EUR 89.1 per MWh, almost 9% lower than the previous day. The price for the 9:00 to 20:00 range is EUR 102 per MWh, 15% lower than in the day before.

The prices are much higher than those in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (EUR 57.4 and EUR 47.8 - the average of the whole day) and slightly higher than those on the other market with which Romania is directly physically coupled, namely Hungary’s market (EUR 88.7).

The situation is mainly due to the lack of production capacities that can not sustain the high winter consumption, although we are still far from peaks of over 10,000 MW and the temperatures are not very low. Romania is importing some 10% of the electricity it is consuming these days.

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editor@romania-insider.com

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