UK Energy Market Report - 10 August 2026

NBP settled quietly lower on Friday, but the whole board is 4p to 8p higher this morning and UK day-ahead power is offered at 132.00 £/MWh, up nearly 45% on Friday's settlement, as a heatwave arrives into below-normal wind.

Friday was a quiet session. This morning is not.

Every NBP contract settled within a penny of Thursday on 7 August, and UK day-ahead power fell 22.27 £/MWh to 91.07. By 09:22 today the whole gas board is 4p to 8p higher and day-ahead power is offered at 132.00 £/MWh.

A heatwave is arriving into a week of below-normal wind, with 620 MW of nuclear already off. The weekend did the repricing that Friday's settlement does not show.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 136.25 p/therm on Friday, down 0.75p. The front month eased 0.96p to 135.95p and Q4-26 slipped 0.44p to 139.24p.

Winter-26 was effectively unchanged, down 0.04p at 136.69p. It was that kind of session.

The long end was mixed rather than weak. Sum-27 added 0.42p to 91.00p and Win-27 gained 0.08p, while Sum-28 lost 0.41p to 67.00p and Win-28 fell 0.56p to 74.20p.

This morning none of that matters. By 09:22 Day-Ahead was indicated at 141.48p, up 5.23p, with Sep-26 at 141.89p and Oct-26 at 142.13p, both close to 6p higher. Q4-26 is bid 5.84p up at 145.08p and Win-26 5.63p up at 142.32p.

The largest move on the board is at the far end. Sum-28 is indicated 8.50p higher at 75.50p, a gain of 12.7% in a single morning against 3.8% on the prompt.

Weather is the driver. The latest EC46 run holds temperatures significantly above seasonal normal for the remainder of the outlook and came in broadly unchanged from the previous forecast. Britain enters another heatwave this week, peaking Wednesday and Thursday before easing at the weekend, and wind generation is expected to stay below seasonal norms for the rest of the week.

On the system, Britain opened 6 mcm/day long. At the 07:00 snapshot demand had risen 5.72 mcm/day to 133.03, UKCS production had fallen 3.50 to 79.50 and linepack was 2.95 lower at 334.21 mcm.

Norwegian nominations tell a similar story. Langeled is down 3.60 mcm/day at 42.70 and Vesterled and Flags down 2.00 at 12.00, though TotalEnergies reports flows to Britain picking up later in the morning on higher Vesterled nominations after that snapshot was taken. GASSCO puts total exit nominations at 313.3 mcm/day, with corrective maintenance at Dvalin starting today and production expected back tomorrow.

UK LNG sendout is nominated at 8 mcm/day, split 3.20 through Isle of Grain and 4.90 through South Hook.

Britain is still exporting into a continental premium. NBP settled at 136.25p against TTF at 139.09p, THE at 140.07p, PEG at 140.22p and Italian PSV at 148.55p, and Britain is sending 34.70 mcm/day to Belgium through IUK and 8.72 to the Netherlands through BBL.

One data point cuts the other way, and it is worth naming. Gas-for-power demand is forecast to ease by 13 mcm/day on the day-ahead, which sits awkwardly beside a power market bid up 40 £/MWh this morning.

The card below summarises where NBP contracts settled on Friday against the previous session.

Electricity Market

UK Day-Ahead baseload settled at 91.07 £/MWh on 7 August, down 22.27 on the day. Day-Ahead peak fell further, down 41.89 to 53.35 £/MWh.

That leaves Friday's peak block 37.72 £/MWh below baseload. It is the widest inversion we have flagged in this report, and it is a solar signature, not a price level anyone can buy.

Forward power barely moved on Friday. Sep-26 baseload added 1.53 to 115.14 £/MWh, Oct-26 slipped 0.13 to 111.78, Q4-26 rose 0.06 to 118.49 and Win-26 gained 0.24 to 116.83.

This morning the prompt has been repriced completely. Day-Ahead baseload is offered at 132.00 £/MWh, some 40.93 above Friday's settlement and a rise of nearly 45%.

The forward curve has followed, though less violently. Sep-26 is offered at 120.90 £/MWh, Oct-26 at 117.00 and Q4-26 at 124.41. Win-26 carries the largest forward move, 8.17 higher at 125.00.

The balancing market has already turned. The minimum System Sell Price so far today is 97.11 £/MWh, set at 01:18. On Friday the daily minimum was 0.00, on Saturday minus 14.47 and on Sunday minus 14.07.

That is only the first eighteen settlement periods, so treat it as a direction rather than a full day. But negative pricing has stopped, and it stopped abruptly.

Supply explains the rest. Hartlepool 2 has been off since 7 August for a planned 16-day outage removing 620 MW, and Heysham 1 reactor 1 is running at 498 of 610 MW.

The stack thins further from here. Heysham 1 reactor 1 comes fully off on 17 August for 15 days and Torness 1 on 21 August for 17 days, so late August carries less nuclear than this week does.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 83.55 $/barrel on Friday, up 1.06 on the day.

Hormuz remains the swing factor. Iran says it is nearing a final agreement with Oman on new shipping lanes through the Strait, but Tehran has restated that Washington must first meet several conditions, including compensation, the removal of sanctions and an end to military threats, before the waterway fully reopens.

Carbon was the strongest performer on the day in percentage terms. EUA Dec-26 gained 1.40 to €83.29 and UK ETS Dec-26 rose 1.02 to £60.50, both up 1.7%.

At Friday's 1.1660 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £71.43, so the UK scheme is still trading roughly £10.93 a tonne below its European equivalent.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 added 0.71 to $118.83/tonne. The LNG complex went the other way, JKM easing to $19.54/MMBtu and TTF spot to $18.71, with Henry Hub firmer at $2.56.

Sterling was close to flat, 1.1660 against the euro and 1.3488 against the dollar.

Worth noting the split. Friday had oil and carbon rising while gas and LNG softened. This morning has put them back on the same side.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$83.55/barrel	+1.3%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$118.83/tonne	+0.6%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€83.29/tonne	+1.7%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£60.50/tonne	+1.7%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$19.54/MMBtu	-1.2%
TTF Gas (spot)	$18.71/MMBtu	-1.5%

Storage and Supply Outlook

European inventories were 58.1% full on 5 August, equivalent to 656.6 TWh.

That is roughly 12 percentage points below the same point last year and around 13 below 2022. The level is not comfortable, but the rate is the real problem.

Daily net injections reached 2.6 TWh, about 12% higher day on day, which sounds encouraging until you set it against the season. GIE data puts EU injections around 18% below where they were a year ago.

Put simply, Europe is refilling more slowly than last year from a lower base, and a warm week reduces heating demand while doing nothing for the injection arithmetic.

British storage is patchy. South Hook sits at 76% full, Holehouse Farm 70%, Stublach 68% and Holford 59%, while Aldbrough is 47%, Hill Top 41%, Hornsea and Isle of Grain 39% and Dragon 33%. Rough and Humbly Grove are both at zero.

The LNG schedule into North West Europe stays dense and stays American. Ten cargoes are due to 15 August, eight of them from the United States, with Brunsbuttel, Eemshaven and Gate each taking 100 mcm today and Wilhelmshaven due 101 mcm from Norway on 13 August.

Not one of those cargoes is booked into a British terminal, which is the whole explanation for UK sendout sitting at 8 mcm/day while Britain exports more than 43 mcm/day to the continent.

What This Means for Your Business

Friday's prints are not available today, and the gap is not small.

Day-ahead power settled at 91.07 £/MWh on Friday and is offered at 132.00 this morning. That is a 45% move across a weekend in which nothing was traded.

Friday's peak block is the more instructive number. At 53.35 £/MWh it sat 37.72 below baseload, and it would be easy to read that as cheap power.

It is not. It is midday solar hollowing out the daytime block, and it tells you nothing about what a business with evening or overnight load actually pays. That is why the number that matters is how your own consumption sits across the day, not the headline rate on a comparison sheet.

The second signal is at the long end, and it is the one most buyers are not watching.

Sum-28 gained 8.50p a therm this morning, 12.7%, against 3.8% on the prompt. The far curve is where the buying is concentrated, which is an uncomfortable fact for anyone whose plan is to wait for the market to come to them.

The curve shape has widened again. Win-26 is indicated at 142.32p against Sum-27 at 94.75p, a step down of 47.57p per therm once this winter clears, where Friday's settlements implied 45.69p.

That premium is the largest single line in any autumn renewal quote, and it moved nearly 2p in one morning. For larger consumers that argues for buying a requirement in tranches rather than committing the whole volume on one screen print, because the screen print is exactly what changed over the weekend.

The watch items this week are the heatwave peaking Wednesday and Thursday, Dvalin returning tomorrow, the conditions Tehran has attached to Hormuz, European injection rates, and Heysham 1 coming fully off on 17 August.

For a view tailored to your consumption profile and renewal window, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: UK Energy Market Report – 7 August 2026