Cooler weather, nuclear power plant outages and low levels of renewables generation pushed central European day ahead prompt prices higher on Wednesday as a large Hungarian spot premium persisted, traders said.



On regional exchanges, Czech and Slovak electricity for Thursday rose nearly 5 percent to 46.21 euros ($57.68) per megawatt hour, while day ahead on Hungary's HUPX jumped 50 percent to 67.38 euros.



Hungarian spot prices have traded well above their Czech and Slovak counterparts in recent months because of limited import capacity and power plant outages.



Czech electricity company CEZ said it had shut units three and four at its Dukovany nuclear power plant for an unplanned repair.



Data from Thomson Reuters Point Carbon showed forecasts for wind generation in Germany rising about 500 megawatts to 2.1 gigawatts with solar production expected to fall by about 400 megawatts to 1.4 gigawatts.



Further along the curve, the Czech Cal '15 contract held steady at 33.80 euros and the Hungarian front year fell 5 cents to 42.35 euros on the Prague-based Power Exchange Central Europe.



Around the region, the benchmark German Cal '15 contract ticked 3 cents higher to 34.27 euros in afternoon trade on Germany's EEX exchange.



Poland's largest gas distributor PGNiG has begun talks with Russia's Gazprom on cutting gas delivery prices, PGNiG said.



Day ahead prices on Poland's POLPX exchange rose to 255.92 zlotys ($75.53) from 188.95 zlotys after bourse data showed planned and unplanned outages would fall to 6.2 gigawatts from 7.1 gigawatts from a day earlier.



Brent oil touched a new four-year low, briefly sinking below $82 a barrel after weak Chinese and European data, but U.S. crude rose on strong employment figures and a surprise drop in inventories.



European carbon futures were up 1 cent to 6.59 6.38 euros a tonne in afternoon trading.

(1 US dollar = 0.8012 euro) (1 US dollar = 3.3884 Polish zloty)



(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by David Goodman)