FRANKFURT, Dec 11 - German power plant capacity reported by 26 utility companies to energy exchange EEX is likely to rise by 0.9 percent to 69,543 megawatts in the seven days to Dec. 18, data from EEX showed on Friday.

The EEX bourse's website, which lists operators' plans on an aggregated basis, showed nuclear capacity will fall by 1,666 MW in the seven days under review.

This tallies with a note from operator E.ON (EONGn.DE) that its Unterweser facility will go offline for around three days on Dec. 16. [ID:nWEA5119]

Oil fired capacity will stay the same and hard coal fired capacity will go up marginally, if operators' plans go ahead.

But brown coal fired capacity will rise by 1,289 MW, gas fired by 342 MW and hydroelectricity by 433 MW, according to the published plans.

Operators of a current total of 80,023 MW capacity report to the EEX voluntarily. The data does not specify individual plants.

Contributing companies that trade on the EEX are Germany's top generators RWE (RWEG.DE), E.ON, EnBW (EBKG.DE) and Vattenfall Europe [VATN.UL].

Other reporting firms are Germany's EVO of Offenbach, Stadtwerke Leipzig (SWL), GKM of Mainz, VSE AG, the city of Bremen utility (swb), Cologne's RheinEnergie, Dresden utility Drewag, N-ERGIE of Nuremberg, Stadtwerke Duesseldorf, Trianel, Heizkraftwerk Halle Trotha and Stadtwerke Duisburg.

Foreign players are Austrian companies KELAG, TIWAG, EVN (EVNV.VI), Salzburg AG, Wien Energie Wienstrom, Energie AG Oberoesterreich (EAG), Verbund subsidiaries ATP and AHB (VERB.VI), and GDF Suez Energie Deutschland (LYOE.PA), formerly Electrabel Deutschland.

The data cannot anticipate unscheduled outages, for which generators allow a reserve.

Looking at operators' planning four weeks ahead, capacity should go up by 3.6 percent to 71,424 MW on Jan. 8, compared with 68,939 MW capacity on Dec. 11, the website showed.

The EEX will switch to a new system of reporting from January 2010, abandoning the current one which it is operating in tandem with the new platform until then. [ID:nLS703172]

Readers can familiarise themselves with the new system on www.transparency.eex.com (Reporting by Vera Eckert)

Germany E.on Energy