The impact of the extreme cold snap that hit the US state of Texas in February coupled with lower winds than a year earlier in Europe led to a halving of first quarter profit at German utility RWE.

With part of its wind fleet in Texas out of service for several days in mid-February due to icing and grid issues, RWE because of forward power supply contracts had to buy that volume in power markets, paying up to $9,000 per megawatt hour.