LONDON (Reuters) - Germany is being hit by an extreme heat wave, fuelling concerns of power supply cuts by plants that rely on river water for cooling, but the country's vast solar capacity should be able to avoid supply shortages, traders said.
During Germany's last severe heat wave in 2006, high temperatures resulted in large-scale power capacity cuts as several major power plants had to shut down to avoid further rises in water temperatures.
"Should temperatures stay in the 30s (degrees Celsius) for a couple of weeks, then I'm sure we'll see large capacity cuts this year too, but many traders have overlooked the increase in German solar capacity since 2006, which I expect will pretty much offset all cuts we might see," one utility trader said.
