On Tuesday, the German electricity price topped €500 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for the first time ever, while the Belgian price reached over €540/MWh.
A trader told De Morgen that an average of €540.8/MWh was paid on Wednesday to keep the lights on in Belgium. Prior to 7 March, the record was around €460/MWh.
In Belgium, the absolute peak occurs on Wednesday between 19:00 and 20:00 when electricity is sold for €747.93/MWh.
Due to record natural gas prices, electricity in Europe is currently historically expensive. On Tuesday afternoon, the European gas price briefly exceeded €250/MWh. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European gas prices were below €50.
Further contributing factors to the price shock were the failure of several French nuclear power plants, as well as low water levels.
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