Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank raised its German wholesale power prices forecasts for the coming years on Monday due to the exit from nuclear power and as new coal fired generation plants may be delayed.

It said in a report that "With our base load forecasts projecting prices of EUR 72 per megawatt hour by 2015, compared with a current forward price of EUR 60 our forecasts over 2011-15 are on average some EUR 8 to EUR 9 per year higher than the current forward curve."

A month ago, Deutsche Bank said the exit from nuclear power could drive up European wholesale power prices by EUR 5 to EUR 6 per megawatt hour from 2012 to 2014 and by even more thereafter.

Germany lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved an exit from nuclear energy by 2022 last Thursday confirming a policy U-turn by Chancellor Ms Angela Merkel driven by Japan Fukushima disaster.

Some 8.4 GW of nuclear capacity have now disappeared. The pending move had added up to 12% to the price of the year-ahead power contract, Cal '12 between March and June in OTC trading.

Deutsche Banks said some 4 GW of coal-fired capacity under construction will take longer to build.

Overall it estimated that 14.3 GW of German fossil fuel capacity will be closed over 2011-15 while new capacity will amount to 17.6 GW.

(Sourced from Reuters)