UK Energy Market Report - 29 September 2026

The front of the curve wins back part of the previous fall on 28 September, peak power jumps 19.63% and Britain is again the cheapest gas hub in the table, while the 2028 contracts slip on gas and power alike

The 28 September session took back some of the previous fall, and the front of the curve took back the most. Gas day-ahead rose 1.20p to 180.50 p/therm, but Oct-26 gained 3.45p and Winter-26 2.54p. The contracts furthest out went the other way: both 2028 contracts fell on the gas, baseload and peak boards.

Power moved harder. Day-ahead baseload settled at £137.00/MWh, up £6.86 or 5.27%, and peak jumped £20.60 or 19.63% to £125.53, cutting its discount to baseload to £11.47 from £25.21. On the imbalance market the evening System Buy Price reached £350.22 at 17:48.

Britain is back as the cheapest gas hub in the table. The four northern continental hubs rose between 4.22p and 5.03p while NBP added 1.20p. At 09:29 this morning the front of the gas curve is marked lower and the far end higher.

Gas Market

The front of the curve led the recovery. Oct-26 rose 3.45p to 183.25p, the largest gain on the board, followed by Q4-26 up 2.79p to 185.42p, Nov-26 up 2.59p to 185.63p, Winter-26 up 2.54p to 184.70p, Dec-26 up 2.32p to 187.40p and Q1-27 up 2.28p to 183.97p.

That wins back between a third and a half of the 25 September fall. Oct-26 had lost 7.76p on 25 September and Winter-26 7.32p; Winter-26 is still 4.78p below its 24 September close of 189.48p.

Further out the gains faded to nothing. Summer-27 rose 1.29p to 132.58p and Winter-27 0.52p to 127.99p, while Summer-28 fell 0.34p to 83.83p and Winter-28 0.33p to 91.14p.

Britain is the cheapest hub in the table again, after two sessions behind France. Every continental hub that rose did so by more than NBP: France’s PEG by 5.03p to 183.73p, Austria’s VTP 4.56p to 188.81p, the Dutch TTF 4.41p to 184.84p and Germany’s THE 4.22p to 185.56p. NBP now sits 3.23p below PEG, and its discount to TTF widened to 4.34p from 1.13p.

The two southern hubs went the other way. Italy’s PSV fell 3.98p to 192.71p and Spain’s PVB 0.57p to 187.55p, so Italy’s premium over Britain narrowed to 12.21p from 17.39p. Commentary this morning ties the continental strength partly to French nuclear output falling below 35 GW after a year-long outage began at Flamanville-3.

The marks published here on 28 September got the direction right and overshot on size. Every gas contract was marked higher; nine settled higher but by less than marked, and the two 2028 contracts settled lower. Day-ahead was indicated at 184.75p and settled 180.50p, 4.25p under; Oct-26 was marked 184.72p against 183.25p, Winter-26 186.96p against 184.70p and Winter-27 129.90p against 127.99p.

At 09:29 today the front is marked lower and the back higher. Day-ahead is indicated at 179.75p, down 0.75p, with Oct-26 at 180.79p and Winter-26 at 182.50p, both about 2.2p to 2.5p below the close. Summer-27 is marked at 138.00p, 5.42p above its settlement, and Winter-27 at 128.50p. Treat all of these as indications with a timestamp, not a forecast.

Norwegian supply is recovering. Exit nominations stand at 285.2 mcm/day this morning, up 25.6 on the 259.6 reported here on 28 September, and maintenance-related outages were expected to fall from 112.37 mcm/day on 28 September to 31.13 by 1 October. The Troll compressor outage has been extended again, to 30 September, but its curtailment is now put at 35 mcm/day rather than 46.

More of it is reaching Britain. At the 07:00 read Langeled is delivering 40.00 mcm/day, against 13.00 at the same stamp on 28 September. Vesterled is at zero on both morning reads.

The rest of the balance barely moved. The IUK export to Belgium is 13.70 mcm/day from 12.80, BBL to the Netherlands is still at zero, UKCS production is 90.60 mcm/day from 92.00 and LNG send-out is unchanged at 8.10, Isle of Grain 3.20 and South Hook 4.90. The system opened about 34 mcm/day long, against about 11 a session earlier.

Electricity Market

Day-ahead baseload settled at £137.00/MWh, up £6.86 or 5.27%, and peak at £125.53, up £20.60 or 19.63%. Peak is still below baseload, but by £11.47 rather than £25.21.

The last seven sessions of day-ahead baseload read £28.00, £198.43, £161.75, £152.55, £161.23, £130.14 and £137.00. The range across them is still £170.43.

The forward curve followed gas, with the front again doing most. Oct-26 baseload rose £4.60 to £146.69 and Q4-26 £2.48 to £148.95, with Winter-26 up £1.92 to £149.74, Nov-26 £1.73 to £151.47, Q1-27 £1.36 to £150.55 and Dec-26 £1.08 to £148.76. Summer-27 added £0.67 to £105.13.

Winter-27 baseload did not join in. It slipped £0.11 to £106.24, with Summer-28 down £0.51 to £71.49 and Winter-28 £0.23 to £80.54.

The peak board rose more evenly. Oct-26 gained £4.46 to £166.25, Q4-26 £2.73 to £172.65, Winter-26 £2.35 to £172.89, Nov-26 £1.98 to £177.47, Q1-27 £1.96 to £173.14 and Dec-26 £1.72 to £174.40. Winter-27 peak edged up £0.17 to £124.48.

The 28 September marks were long, as they were on gas. Day-ahead was offered at £135.25 and settled £1.75 above it, but Nov-26 was shown at £157.00 and settled £151.47, Winter-26 £151.75 against £149.74, and Winter-27 £110.00 against £106.24. The last report said every baseload contract was marked higher; Winter-27 then settled lower. Oct-26 peak was offered at £167.50 and settled £166.25.

At 09:29 today Oct-26 baseload, which expires this afternoon, is offered at £142.80, down £3.89. Day-ahead is offered at £117.65, down £19.35, for delivery on the windiest day in the forecast. The rest of the curve is marked higher: Nov-26 at £155.00, Winter-26 £152.00 and Winter-27 £108.90.

The imbalance market had its biggest evening since 22 September. Monday 28 September settled with a maximum System Buy Price of £350.22 at 17:48, the highest daily maximum carried in these reports since the £594.00 of 22 September. The minimum System Sell Price was £43.03 at 04:14.

The part-day row published here yesterday caught neither end. It read £257.80 and £70.00; the maximum finished £92.42 higher and the minimum £26.97 lower. The 25, 26 and 27 September rows are unchanged since the last report. Today’s part-day row reads £195.00 at 07:20 and £104.62 at 04:18, with most of the day still to come.

Wind is strong for two days and then drops away. Combined wind and solar generation is forecast near 13,000 MWh today and about 15,400 on 30 September, against a seasonal norm near 10,500. It then falls to about 8,300 on 1 October, 9,300 on the 2nd and near 6,300 on the 3rd, before recovering towards 8,800 by 6 October.

Temperatures are forecast above the seasonal mean on every day to 6 October: near 17°C today and about 18.5°C on 30 September, against a mean close to 13°C, then 14°C to 15°C for the rest of the period.

Nuclear outages are unchanged at 2,255 MW. Heysham 1 reactor 1, out at 610 MW, is scheduled to return today after twenty-one days, but that column is a plan rather than a record, and the same schedule has been extended once already. Hartlepool 2 is out at 620 MW until 3 October and Heysham 2 reactor 8 at 660 MW.

Hartlepool 1 now carries two entries: a new 56 MW unplanned reduction backdated to 26 September for two days, and the 55 MW from 28 September for twelve days reported yesterday.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent settled at $105.28/barrel on 28 September, up $0.96 or 0.92%, recovering less than half of the previous session’s $2.28 fall. Sterling was flat against the dollar at 1.3252, so in sterling terms the barrel rose 0.91% to about £79.44.

Fuel rose and carbon fell. Brent, coal and JKM all settled higher, while both carbon allowances and Henry Hub slipped.

Asia’s LNG premium over Britain widened a little further. JKM rose $0.26 to $26.08/MMBtu against a $0.16 rise in NBP spot to $23.92, taking the gap to $2.16 from $2.06. TTF spot rose $0.60 to $24.52, so Britain’s spot discount to the Dutch hub is also $0.60.

Carbon eased on both sides. UK ETS Dec-26 fell £0.46 to £58.96 and EUA Dec-26 €0.61 to €86.17. At 1.1657 the UK allowance is worth about €68.73, a €17.44 discount to the European price, a touch narrower than €17.72 a session earlier. Coal API2 Cal-27 rose $1.32 to $135.59/tonne.

Commentary this morning has oil firming again after the US President said he had offered Iran nothing to help end the conflict, dismissing reports that Washington was ready to ease sanctions. That keeps the geopolitical risk premium in the curve.

Storage and Supply Outlook

British storage fell four points in a session to 44% on the country map, twice the fall of the whole weekend and still the emptiest of the seven readings shown. The continent barely moved: Germany rose a point to 57%, while France at 81%, Italy 86%, Spain 73% and the two overlapping Benelux labels at 57% and 61% were unchanged. European storage as a whole was put at about 70.9%, from 70.4%.

Hill Top did most of the drawing again, falling from 18% to 11% after halving over the weekend. Stublach slipped two points to 56% and South Hook two to 78%, while Aldbrough edged up a point to 37%. Isle of Grain at 42%, Hornsea and Holehouse Farm at 70%, HolFord 75% and Dragon 33% were unchanged; Rough is empty and Humbly Grove sits at 1%.

The cargo schedule again has no British delivery. Ten cargoes carrying about 898 mcm are due at northwest European terminals between today and 4 October, four of them at Gate and the rest at Dunkirk, Eemshaven, Fos and Montoir. Eight come from the United States, one from Algeria, and one, a 101 mcm delivery to Montoir on 1 October, from Russia. British LNG send-out is expected at about 8 mcm/day today.

So the change in Britain’s supply this week is Norwegian. The 27 mcm/day extra through Langeled is larger than all of today’s LNG send-out, and with Norwegian maintenance due to fall to about 31 mcm/day by 1 October there is room for more.

What This Means for Your Business

For fixed-price buyers the reference points are Winter-26 at 184.70 p/therm and £149.74/MWh, about 6.30 p/kWh for gas and 15.0 p/kWh for power at wholesale, before network costs, levies and supplier margin.

The winter-to-winter spread widened again. Winter-26 gas is 56.71p above Winter-27, from 54.69p, and Winter-26 power £43.50 above Winter-27, from £41.46. The coming winter is doing the moving: Winter-27 gas rose only 0.52p on the day and Winter-27 power slipped.

Winter-26 gas has now gone up 8.23p, down 7.32p and up 2.54p in three sessions, and is marked 2.20p lower this morning. A buyer trying to pick the single right day would have been wrong-footed on each of them, which is why we recommend buying in tranches across several dates rather than trying to pick one.

For power buyers the day-ahead market is a reminder of what an unhedged position looks like. Seven sessions of baseload have ranged from £28.00 to £198.43, and the imbalance price hit £350.22 on Monday evening. A fixed business electricity contract takes that volatility off the table; the forward curve is where the decision gets made.

Supply is improving at the margin. Norwegian gas is flowing back to Britain and maintenance is winding down, but British storage is the lowest in Europe at 44% and still falling, and no LNG cargo on this week’s schedule is British. The curve fell on 25 September on mild weather and calmer geopolitics, and firmed on 28 September on renewed Middle East risk and slow European storage injections, with the weather still mild. That leaves it sensitive to the first cold spell.

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, 28 September 2026