EUROPE POWER-Rising wind supply weighs on spot prices

PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - European spot power contracts fell on Thursday as wind power supply was forecast to jump in Germany and rise a little in France.

"A soaring wind power supply underpins tomorrow's bearish signal, which is also supported by a drop in consumption levels," Refinitiv analysts said.

Dutch and Belgian residual loads were also bearish, while French and Austrian residual loads were unchanged, they added.

German baseload power for delivery on Friday was down 20.4% to 116 euros ($123.02) a megawatt-hour (MWh) at 0854 GMT.

The equivalent French price shed 2.7% to 143.50 euros/MWh.

Daily wind power output in Germany was forecast to rise 15.5 gigawatts (GW) to 25.2 GW on Friday, and French wind output was seen up 650 megawatts (MW) to 4 GW that day, Eikon data showed.

French nuclear availability shed one percentage point to 72% of total capacity as a reactor went offline with an unplanned outage.

Operator EDF said the 1.3 GW Paluel 4 outage was caused by the malfunction of equipment located in the non-nuclear part of the installation, and that teams were reconnecting it to the network.

On the demand side, German consumption is set to slide 880 MW on Friday to 60.2 GW, while demand in France is seen up 680 MW to 58.3 GW, the Eikon data showed.

Along the forwards curve, German baseload for 2024 delivery dropped 2.1% to 148.50 euros/MWh.

The equivalent French contract was untraded with a bid-ask range between 168 and 171 euros/MWh.

European CO2 allowances for December 2023 expiry added 1% to 97.75 euros a tonne.

As Europe emerges from a mild winter with gas storage close to record levels, it must brace for another costly race to replenish its reserves on the international market before peak winter demand next year.

($1 = 0.9430 euros) (Reporting by Forrest Crellin Editing by Mark Potter)