FRANKFURT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - European wholesale power prices on Thursday were little changed, with French levels slightly up and Germany's untraded as slight demand and supply variations cancelled each other out. "The market shows mixed signals. While wind generation is down, the overall drop in consumption and residual load suggests (a) mild(ly) bearish signal," said LSEG analyst Xiulan He, adding that coal capacity availability was up, and that of gas down. The French baseload price for Friday was at 90.3 euros ($105.16) per megawatt hour (MWh) at 0800 GMT, up 1.4% from its close. The equivalent German position stood untraded, having settled at 104.3 euros/MWh. French autumn holidays over the coming fortnight weighed on the country's week-ahead contract. Supply-wise, German wind power output was expected to rise to 16.6 gigawatts (GW) on Friday from 15.4 GW, while French wind generation was seen down between 200 and 500 MW from Thursday's anticipated level of 5.2 GW. French nuclear availability was one percentage point up overnight at 69% of total capacity. Power demand was seen falling to 56.9 GW in Germany from 57.7 GW in the two-day period, and broadly steady in France at 47.6 GW. German year-ahead baseload was 0.5% up at 86.8 euros/MWh and untraded in France, which had closed at 56.4 euros. In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was 0.1% lower at 77.78 euros a metric ton. The German met office DWD's current temperature forecast for the winter season envisages a strong tendency for a normal to warmer early winter in November through to January compared with the averages recorded in those months in the period 1991-2020. The forecast quality for that period is relatively good, it added. ($1 = 0.8587 euros) (Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Elaine Hardcastle) (The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)
