UK Energy Market Report - 17 September 2026

Strong wind takes a third off day-ahead power, NBP gas falls for a second session and Norwegian supply weakens again

Day-ahead power took the heaviest fall of the session on 16 September. Baseload for delivery on Thursday 17 September settled at £111.24/MWh, down £59.93 or 35.0%, and peak at £77.88/MWh, down £97.96 or 55.7%, with wind output forecast well above the seasonal norm.

Gas fell for a second session. NBP day-ahead settled at 193.60 p/therm, down 3.90p or 1.97% and the lowest settlement since 8 September. Ten of the eleven NBP contracts closed lower, Winter-26 by 5.74p to 195.79p.

Brent dropped $2.92, or 2.69%, to $105.83 a barrel, one session after its highest close of the month. Both carbon markets eased and sterling weakened against the euro and the dollar.

Gas Market

Day-ahead has now shed 13.75p in two sessions from the 207.35p it reached on 14 September. Winter-26 has dropped 5.98p and then 5.74p over the same two days, more than wiping out the 7.46p it gained on 14 September.

The heaviest losses sat in the first winter quarter. Q1-27 fell 6.14p to 195.15p, Dec-26 5.65p to 198.67p and Nov-26 5.46p to 197.12p. Further out the moves shrank: Summer-27 lost 2.07p to 132.68p, Winter-27 0.65p to 126.79p, and Winter-28 edged up 0.19p to 88.01p.

Britain remained the cheapest of the seven European hubs, though by a smaller margin. TTF settled at 197.51p, down 5.99p, which narrows the NBP discount to 3.91p from 6.00p. Southern Europe went the other way: Italy’s PSV rose 7.79p to 213.96p, now the dearest hub, and Spain’s PVB 3.48p to 211.60p.

For a fourth session running the morning marks came in above the close. At 09:32 yesterday this report gave 197.40p for day-ahead, 200.75p for Winter-26 and 201.36p for Q4-26; they settled 3.80p, 4.96p and 4.95p lower. Summer-27 and Winter-27 had been marked up and both finished down, 3.32p and 1.71p below their marks.

The 09:33 marks this morning point up again: day-ahead 194.75p, up 1.15p, Winter-26 197.62p, up 1.83p, and Q1-27 197.22p, up 2.07p. Given the run of marks landing above settlement, those gains are a direction at best.

Norwegian supply has slipped further. A compressor failure at Troll has added an unplanned outage to an already heavy maintenance programme, and exit nominations dropped to 260.4 mcm/day from 280.9. At the 07:00 read Langeled showed no flow into Britain, from 13.00 mcm/day the previous morning, and Vesterled held at 4.00.

The system opened 12 mcm/day short this morning after opening 17 long on 16 September. Set against the previous 07:00 figures, demand is 0.44 higher at 109.50 mcm/day, UKCS production 6.50 lower at 89.00 and linepack 32.64 lower at 320.82. Exports to the Netherlands through BBL continue at 16.10.

Electricity Market

Peak dropped back below baseload one session after a ten-session run ended, and by £33.36. Day-ahead baseload is at its lowest settlement since 4 September and day-ahead peak at its lowest since 11 September.

The forward curve barely followed. Oct-26 baseload fell £2.54 to £149.98, Q4-26 £3.04 to £156.49 and Winter-26 £1.21 to £159.84, while Q1-27 rose £0.67 to £163.27. Oct-26 baseload now stands £38.74 above the day-ahead; a session earlier it was £18.65 below it.

Summer-27 baseload fell £1.81 to £105.25 and Winter-27 £0.24 to £106.00, so the winter contract is back above the summer, by £0.75, after three sessions the other way round.

Yesterday’s day-ahead baseload offer of £112.00 sat £59.17 under the settlement it was set against, and this report treated it as an indication only. It finished £0.76 away from the 16 September close. The forward marks were too high again: Q4-26 at £161.00 settled £4.51 lower, Winter-26 at £162.98 £3.14 lower and Dec-26 at £172.49 £13.56 lower.

At 09:33 day-ahead baseload is offered at £112.00, £0.76 over settlement, and forward baseload is marked £0.38 to £3.27 higher, with Winter-26 at £163.04. Oct-26 is the only peak contract quoted, at £174.00. With liquidity thin and the forward marks overshooting for three sessions, read these as indications.

The imbalance market held at one end and missed at the other. The part-day row published here yesterday read £191.87 at 06:18 and £55.00 at 04:19. The 16 September settlement reached a maximum of £275.00 at 16:49, £83.13 higher, while the £55.00 minimum stood. This morning’s part-day row shows £204.40 at 06:48 and £24.44 at 00:19, and neither is settled.

Wind is behind the slump. Combined wind and solar generation is forecast near 15,200 MWh today against a seasonal norm of about 10,200, easing to around 14,300 on 18 September and peaking close to 16,000 on the 19th. It then drops steeply, below the norm from about 21 September and down to roughly 6,700 by the 23rd. After three days of redrawing, the shape is close to the previous forecast. Gas-for-power demand is forecast at about 19 mcm/day for the day-ahead.

The UK temperature chart shows about 15°C today against a mean near 14°C, closest to the mean on 18 September and around 17°C on the 19th, with every day to 24 September above the mean. Nuclear outages are unchanged at 2,725 MW across five units, and Torness 1 and Heysham 1 reactor 1 are scheduled back around 25 September.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent settled at $105.83/barrel on 16 September, down $2.92 or 2.69%. Reports that Saudi Arabia was offering extra crude cargoes through Oman eased supply concerns, but the price is holding above $100 while two pumping stations on the Saudi East-West Pipeline, damaged in an attack last week, wait for repairs with no firm timetable.

JKM front month fell $0.54 to $27.23/MMBtu and NBP spot $0.71 to $25.91. That widens Asia’s premium over Britain to $1.32 from $1.16. TTF spot lost $0.86 to $26.58.

EUA Dec-26 fell €0.87 to €84.74 and UK ETS Dec-26 £1.00 to £59.65. At 1.1663 the UK allowance is worth about €69.57, a €15.17 discount to the EUA, wider than the €14.74 of a session earlier.

Sterling eased to 1.1663 against the euro and fell 0.0093 to 1.3381 against the dollar, which nudges up the sterling cost of oil and LNG priced in dollars.

Storage and Supply Outlook

Britain’s reading on the country storage map ticked up to 51% from 50%. Italy shows 84%, France 75%, Spain 73% and Germany 55%, with the two Benelux labels at 51% and 59%.

Several British sites filled. South Hook rose ten points to 65%, Hill Top five to 40%, Aldbrough four to 53%, Stublach three to 79% and Hornsea one to 62%. Isle of Grain slipped a point to 27%. HolFord (75%), Holehouse Farm (70%) and Dragon (33%) were unchanged, and Rough and Humbly Grove are still empty.

UK LNG sendout dropped to 8.10 mcm/day at 07:00 from 9.70 a day earlier, with South Hook down to 4.90 and Isle of Grain steady at 3.20.

Ten cargoes carrying about 847 mcm are due at northwest European terminals between 17 and 20 September: five from the United States, two each from Russia and Algeria, and one from Norway. Once more, none is booked for a British terminal.

What This Means for Your Business

For fixed-price buyers the reference points are Winter-26 at 195.79 p/therm and £159.84/MWh, about 6.7p/kWh for gas and 16.0p/kWh for power at wholesale, before network costs, levies and supplier margin. Winter-26 gas is about 11.7p below its 14 September settlement and Winter-26 power £6.38 below.

The power market shows how far the prompt and the forward curve can separate. One windy day took £59.93 off baseload for Thursday 17 September and £1.21 off the winter. Businesses on flexible or pass-through electricity contracts feel that kind of swing directly; a fixed contract is priced from the forward curve.

Two parts of the supply picture lean against the recent fall in gas: wind is forecast to drop below its norm from around 21 September, which lifts gas burn for power, and Norwegian output is losing capacity to unplanned outages. For a business renewing in the coming months, a two-session dip is a sensible moment to compare fixed gas prices rather than wait for a lower number that supply does not promise.

The gap between Winter-26 and Winter-27 narrowed to 69.00p on gas and £53.84 on power, from 74.09p and £54.81, so a 24-month price is still worth setting beside any twelve-month quote.

If you want to know what these movements mean for your own contract dates and consumption profile, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: UK Energy Market Report, 16 September 2026