Full return of IFA 1 France-UK power cable delayed; France swings to discount

The full return of the second 1-GW pole of the fire-damaged IFA 1 France-UK power interconnector has been delayed by a few days with the first ramp up now scheduled for Dec. 30, transparency data showed.

The ramp-up to 500 MW was planned for Dec. 22 already delayed from Nov. 17, while the full return to 1 GW is now set for late Jan. 23, some five days later than planned, the Dec. 20 note by National Grid ESO said.

The update also schedules a six day outage for this 1-GW pole from Jan. 17-23 before a return to full capacity for the 2-GW IFA-1 interconnector.

In September 2021, a fire at the IFA 1 converter station in Sellindge, Kent significantly damaged the site with only one pole with 1 GW available since.

Both National Grid and French grid operator RTE have warned of possible supply interruptions this winter in extremely cold weather conditions with low wind and other possible outages.

The cold spell early December saw UK day-ahead power prices hit record highs but the system coped despite demand spikes.

French nuclear output improved by around 10 GW since late November, while demand trends showed some signs of structural demand destruction both in France and Great Britain.

French power for January has lost its premium to UK prices after falling 63% since the start of December to a Eur279.14/MWh settle Dec. 22, EEX data showed.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed UK January baseload Dec. 22 at GBP253.15/MWh (Eur287.34).

Analysts at S&P Global forecast monthly flows to reverse to net imports into Great Britain from December after an unprecedented long spell of net exports into France due to record-low nuclear production.

France is currently exporting at the maximum 3 GW capacity to Great Britain on IFA 1, IFA 2 and ElecLink, system data showed.