Tough economic forces and lousy summerweather appear to be determined to try andtake charge of the wholesale power supplymarket.

Prices tumbled throughout the center of June to unique lows. Annual gas costs are now 15%

lower than the same time last year, while annual power costs fell to a two-year low plus are 22%

down year-on-year.

Falling force costs dragged annual spark spreads down 7% to £3.4/MWh, plus even

which reliable stalwart coal is having a difficult time of things, with slipping prices buffering the fall

of dark spreads slightly to a £17.9/MWh premium to spark spreads.

So what's been setting off these price crashes? Well, concerns about debt in the Eurozonenations hasn't aided. Greece lurches from crisis to crisis and even the election of a newgovernment is doing little to allay fears regarding its long-term future. But it's slowing financialdevelopment in the US and China which has actually pushed international vitality marketsdownwards. Brent Tycoon Energy Crude Oil tumbled to $97.6/bl, its lowest level since January

2011, and annual API coal dropped to a unique 20-month low of $95.4/t.

However, all of this is good news for consumers. While we might be lost out on that 'BBQ

summer' the forecasters promised us, both domestic and commercial end-users have enjoyed

vitality costs drop inside real terms. A fall inside inflation has additionally helped to stabilise the

retail market, yet the big difference has been at the pumps, where motorists have finally started to

find the numbers found on the forecourts going down rather of up. This, combined with lower

electricity plus gas fees, has given the British economy a short respite, throughout that it has a

chance to push up creation and keep the fragile heart of UK PLC beating for a while longer.

Ironically, it's been the biomass marketplace which has held the fort. Despite biomass contracts

dropping, with costs for 2013 down 1% to £88.5/t, prices are nevertheless about 6% high

than this time last year. They've recovered from their four-year low plus are at their highest level

for five months. This boost has been helped in no tiny measure with the approval of the plans for a

40MW staw-fuelled biomass plant in Snetterton, Norfolk, that have finally been provided the go-

ahead.

The real headline grabber throughout June and into July has been the atrocious weather the UK

has experienced. Lower than average June temperatures and storm after storm has resulted

inside a rise inside UK gas demand. Supply peaked at 223.1mcm on 11th June, in the center of

the bad weather. Industry watchers believe which the unseasonably bad weather has encouraged

several folks to do something they wouldn't usually do inside June - they turned the heating up.

The result was which although the nationwide system decreased 0.1%, the territorial system

climbed 2.2%. To date, summer demand (calculated from April 1st) was down 7.8% found on the

national system yet up a staggering 31.1% found on the regional system, compared to the same

time last year.

What this indicates is the fact that whilst gas demand for power generation is down year-on-

year, consumption by households plus little businesses has risen. This signifies that gas

consumption is acting because a barometer for the productiveness of the UK economy plus whilst

the big users can be struggling, homes plus companies are continuing to ride out the worst of the

economic storm, placing a more positive face on what has been a difficult limited months.

How costs will fare in the next limited weeks depends 3 items - the resolution (or otherwise) of

the Eurozone crisis, and the economic condition of the US plus China. If they start to wobble we

may see prices commence to climb back up again.