London (Platts)--26Nov2012/923 am EST/1423 GMT

Baseload power for Tuesday delivery eased back Monday morning as nuclear and wind generation climbed, but uncertain weather has continued to support the latter parts of the week, market sources said.

On the OTC market day-ahead baseload was last heard at GBP48.10/MWh, down GBP2.60 from where Friday closed for Monday baseload, while peakload power was last heard GBP2.25 lower than Friday's close at GBP57.25/MWh.

Traders said very little OTC market activity has taken place on the day-ahead contracts following the N2EX day-ahead baseload power auction which outturned at GBP45.95/MWh for around 3GW of power.

"There is selling interest, just no buyers," said the trader, who added that interest in Wednesday baseload has seen the contract trade at around GBP49/MWh as participants hedge against weather risk following divergent forecasts for this week.

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"[Forecasters] know the cold snap is coming -- but until it arrives it is just impossible to forecast how long it could be here for," the trader said.

While Wednesday baseload is supported by weather risk, Tuesday baseload remains subdued by stronger nuclear generation output following the return of the Heysham 1-1 reactor and healthy wind generation.

EDF Energy returned its 610 MW Heysham 1-2 nuclear unit to service Saturday night following a six-week unplanned outage following a cooling water pipe leak.

The return of Heysham 1-1 has bolstered total UK nuclear power output to above the 7 GW mark, National Grid data shows, to account for 15.3% of the generation mix.

Market analysts said Monday: "There are a further 4 reactors due back online this week with a further 2 GW of nuclear reactors being added back to the grid before the weekend."

In addition, wind generation remains healthy at almost 2.5 GW midday and is forecast to climb to almost 3.3 GW over Tuesday's peak daily power demand periods.

Continental power imports remain strong at just shy of 2 GW midday (or 4.4% of the energy mix) while gas and coal make up the lion's share of the energy mix at 13 GW and 19.6 GW respectively.

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