Gas power plants are shouldering more than two fifths of the UK’s electricity demands today, picking up the slack from coal, according to a daily market report.

Coal often makes up as much as 40% of the UK’s power but this isn’t the case at the moment.

Gemma Bruce, Client Portfolio Manager on the Optimisation Desk said: “We’ve also seen coal generation drop off to just 10GW as we enter a heavy summer maintenance period.

“However gas fired generation has picked up to cover the shortfall and is currently contributing more than 40% to the UK generation stack.”

There was a healthy peak margin of more than 13GW this morning despite low wind generation below 500MW, she said.

Ms Bruce said a “pick up” in the euro is helping to put pressure on the seasonal contracts, while “dipping” oil prices this morning are also pressurising the longer dated contracts, that is, ones further in the future.

Slightly warmer temperature forecasts for a week’s time are also “softening” prices for next week.