London (Platts)--22Jan2013/808 am EST/1308 GMT

The price for day-ahead baseload power reversed the previous day's losses as Wednesday demand is set to rise above Tuesday's levels alongside falling wind generation and increased power exports to France, market sources said.

On the OTC market, day-ahead baseload was last heard GBP1.20 higher than the previous day's close at GBP53.55/MWh midday while peakload power regained 90 pence over the morning session to GBP61.15/MWh.

A steep rise in value was also seen on the N2EX day-ahead baseload power auction which outturned almost GBP1 higher than Monday's GBP52.35/MWh result at GBP53.27/MWh Tuesday morning.

Peak daily power demand is expected to reach 56.4 GW at 1700 GMT Tuesday but by the same time Wednesday will be 57.1 GW, National Grid data shows.

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With Wednesday's rising demand comes lower wind generation levels which are forecast to fall from levels around 3 GW Tuesday morning to below 1.5 GW over much of Wednesday.

Nuclear generation remains strong at 9 GW (or 17.3% of the generation mix) reducing dependence on gas-fired power which was pegged at 18.8 GW (36.2%) while coal-burn was seen at 20.2 GW (38.9%).

"We have however seen the French Interconnector switch to export mode due to continuing problems with nuclear generation in France," a market source said.

Power imports from France were negligible in the early hours of Tuesday morning with the Interconnector quickly flipping to exports to send as much as 1 GW to the Continent by 0900 GMT.

Freezing weather across the UK over the past week has maintained strong demand for gas and power. Temperatures in London are forecast around 1-2 degrees Celsius Tuesday and Wednesday with mist and cloud, but temperatures are expected to turn milder over the weekend at 6 degrees C Saturday.

Baseload power for delivery this weekend was last heard at GBP48.50/MWh, well below the average closing price over week 3 for delivery the weekend of January 19/20 at GBP50.46/MWh.

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