German power capacity to May 1 seen up 8 pct

FRANKFURT, April 24 (Reuters) - German power plant capacity reported by 26 utility companies in the seven days to May 1 is likely to rise 8.0 percent to 63,589 megawatts, data from power exchange EEX showed on Friday.

The bourse's website, which lists operators' plans on an aggregated basis, showed that nuclear, oil-fired and hydroelectric capacity would be broadly steady in the period.

But if the plans go ahead, there will be big additions of nearly 1,400 MW of brown-coal fired, 2,000 MW of hard-coal fired and 900 MW of gas-fired capacity, it showed.

The EEX data covers 80,140 MW of installed capacity, well over half the German total.

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

Others 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 031032 Duesseldorf, Trianel and Halle Trotha.

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.

Stadtwerke Duisburg was the latest company to join the initiative, in December.

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

Looking at operators' planning four weeks ahead, capacity should also rise 8.0 percent to 63,595 MW on May 22 compared with capacity now, the website showed. (Reporting by Vera Eckert; editing by Sue Thomas)