Wind nearly doubled on Tuesday, and the gas plants burned 2% less

Yesterday the wind did what Monday’s forecasters promised. German onshore turbines generated 279.3 gigawatt hours across the whole of Tuesday 3 November and offshore wind 89.5, SMARD’s provisional figures show¹. Desk arithmetic: that is 368.8 gigawatt hours, against 196.6 on Monday (73.7 onshore, 122.9 offshore), an increase of about 88%¹. Onshore alone produced almost four times Monday’s output¹.

The fossil fleet hardly moved. Natural gas plants produced 310.0 gigawatt hours on Tuesday against 316.3 on Monday, a fall of about 2%¹. Lignite gave up a little more, 260.5 against 276.1, about 6%¹. Hard coal went the other way, from 102.3 to 107.7¹. Desk arithmetic: the three together fell from 694.7 to 678.2 gigawatt hours, by 16.5, while wind rose by 172.2¹.

So where did the wind go? Not into a quieter country: total grid load was 1,421.4 gigawatt hours on Tuesday, barely below Monday’s 1,436.7¹. SMARD’s residual load, the demand left over after wind and solar, fell from 1,159.8 to 978.3 gigawatt hours¹. The generation series do not show where the rest of the difference was settled; the cross-border account is a separate ledger, and this desk has not yet checked it. What the figures do show is that one windy weekday does not switch off the plants that were already booked, warmed up and selling into the evening peak.

The price said the same thing, a day in advance. Tuesday’s day-ahead average was €252.85 per megawatt hour and Wednesday’s is €248.99, the first delivery day below €250 since 28 October¹. Desk arithmetic: the windiest day since 27 October was priced only €6.46 below Monday’s €259.31¹. The auction had already read the forecast. It priced the wind as a help, not a rescue.

None of this argues against turbines. It argues for patience with the figures: the first full-day generation numbers are provisional, they move, and a single day tells you about a single day¹. Nothing here is investment advice.