[HN Gopher] Day ahead electricity prices for EU
___________________________________________________________________
Day ahead electricity prices for EU
Author : taubek
Score : 187 points
Date : 2022-08-27 12:55 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (euenergy.live)
(TXT) w3m dump (euenergy.live)
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| At $0.40/kWh Germany is now paying the same or slightly less than
| a PG&E TOU customer.
|
| I didn't realize their electricity was so much cheaper than ours
| to start with.
| mqus wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this price is before taxes (and maybe more
| payments) and german taxes are pretty heavy, ca. 30% of the
| consumer price is taxes and stuff, ~25% go to the network
| operator and only ~45% are power generation[1](~the prices in
| the visualization). So you have to roughly double that to get
| consumer EUR/kWh (ofc daily prices are a bit different than a
| contract over a whole year).
|
| [1, german sadly] https://strom-
| report.de/strompreise/strompreis-zusammensetzu...
| bushbaba wrote:
| California is near the same cost as hawaii. The rates are
| absurd. With the rate payer bailing out their past dividends
| and lack of investment.
| speedgoose wrote:
| North of Norway has almost free electricity while the south is
| quite expensive. The only link between the two regions are
| through Sweden for now. A new power line will connect the two
| regions in Norway eventually. So the north will pay more and the
| south the same since everything will be absorbed by other
| European countries.
|
| The electricity companies in the south also follow well the
| business strategy of privatising the benefits and socialising the
| losses. The water level in the lakes in the south are too low
| especially considering the difficult winter to come, yet they
| sometimes empty them to export to Scotland to make money now.
|
| It's a bit annoying but at least I get push notifications when
| the price is very high or very low.
| lawn wrote:
| And Sweden has the same problem with energy transfers, where
| it's very cheap in the north and very expensive in the south.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Green without a proper plan? Germany/Europe will be the green
| poster children on how not to do it. Guess who will damage the
| environment more in the end.
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| Germany has been exporting electricity to France all summer,
| because they had to shut down more than half their nuclear
| power plants for maintenance and due to heat.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| No matter what magic plan anyone comes up with it would take
| years to implement. Nuclear, more insulation, hydrogen, new gas
| fields. It's almost winter already.
| Tarsul wrote:
| the magic plan should be to consume less and less and less.
| If we would consume 20% less, which should be absolutely
| doable, these problems would alleviate itself quite fast
| (well, we still should invest as much as we can in
| renewables). However, for that to happen we would need to
| have governments that are not afraid and act.
| sofixa wrote:
| > If we would consume 20% less, which should be absolutely
| doable, these problems would alleviate itself quite fast
| (well, we still should invest as much as we can in
| renewables). However, for that to happen we would need to
| have governments that are not afraid and act.
|
| Act how exactly? How do you propose on forcing everyone,
| citizens and enterprises, to consume less energy? Why would
| they want to do that? Transition to less energy intensive
| alternatives sure (like LEDs), but that's not easy, will
| require massive investments and is by the way already in
| progress.
| neverrroot wrote:
| I have doubts.
| mantas wrote:
| More insulation is double edge sword. I moved into a super-
| energy-efficient house here in north/east Europe. Heating in
| winter is damn cheap. But retention works in summer too... so
| I had to get air conditioner :( And electrical ventilation is
| a must all year round to get air fresh, keep module at bay
| ant not loose energy living with open windows. Energy saving
| in bottom line will be abysmal :(
| guerby wrote:
| You're probably missing thermal mass in the house. Comes
| with bio-sourced insulating material, but usually not with
| rock/glass whool or polystyrene & the like.
| mantas wrote:
| Thermal mass doesn't help if it's hot for a days. Then it
| just keeps the heat.
|
| In winter, the house works great to retain heat. But as I
| learned during construction when I had to prepare for
| laying flooring, it took a while to heat it up.
| badpun wrote:
| That house would be much worse without the insulation.
| That's why it's unbearably hot in summer in say a shack
| made of out sheet metal (such shack would be much more
| bearable if it was insulated).
| mantas wrote:
| Metal shack would be worse in the middle of the day.
| Insulated house retains heat at night. Spending day
| outside is an option, spending a night is much worse.
| badpun wrote:
| During the night, you can... open windows and create
| draft? Unless the night is very hot, it should be enough
| to bring temperature inside down to manageable levels.
| foepys wrote:
| You should leave the windows open at night to let the
| cooler air in and cool the insulation from the inside. Once
| you let the heat inside by opening windows in the heat, you
| have lost, that's true.
| mantas wrote:
| I did that last year. But it doesn't cool down enough in
| the evening to sleep comfortably.
| welterde wrote:
| The key is not to let the heat in in the first place during
| the summer. Thick external shutters do wonders in that
| regard. Well insulated windows alone will let in the heat
| (in form of light) but not out again (IR).
|
| I really wonder why these shutters are not way more common
| than they are.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > But retention works in summer too... so I had to get air
| conditioner
|
| It's the opposite. Insulation protects you from heat as
| well. That's why refrigerators are very much insulated.
| mantas wrote:
| Insulation protects only so long till it heats up. Then
| it keeps the heat inside.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Exactly, because it was all done without a proper plan. And
| they have been warned multiple times, laughter and sarcasm is
| unfortunately all they had as a reply. Now this.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Why single out Germany when there are 14 countries on that list
| with higher prices?
|
| Gas as a transitionary energy source is something lots of
| countries have bet on. Meanwhile France is doing a great job
| showcasing the problems of Nuclear during heat waves (they will
| be the ones laughing in the Winter though)
| _dain_ wrote:
| Because the Germans have a huge say in EU energy market
| regulations.
| leke wrote:
| My town's investment in renewables is really paying off.
| sprak wrote:
| Sweden has four zones and according to [1] tomorrow's price will
| be from north to south:
|
| Zone 1: 14,25 cents/kWh
|
| Zone 2: 14,25 cents/kWh
|
| Zone 3: 108,64 cents/kWh
|
| Zone 4: 201,63 cents/kWh
|
| 1 Swedish krona is 0,094 USD. So between 1,3 and 20 American
| cents per kWh.
|
| Most people live in Zone 3 followed by Zone 4. Facebook's
| datacenter is in Zone 1.
|
| [1]: https://elen.nu
| tmikaeld wrote:
| The disturbing thing is that Zone 4 has to pay export prices,
| when it would be fairer to pay pre-export prices.
|
| It's already starting to bankrupt businesses in Zone 4, that
| are calling for immediate changes [0].
|
| [0] https://www.di.se/live/efter-elprissmockan-skanska-
| foretag-v...
| anticristi wrote:
| Hello from zone 4. Indeed, people here are pretty pissed
| about this. Basically, if an exporting transmission line got
| damaged, zone 4 prices would drop instantly.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| I'm also in Zone 4, prepare to be even more pissed then,
| the state want to double the export capacity [0].
|
| [0] https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2022-08-18/regeringen-kan-
| bana-va...
|
| The electricity companies and the socialist state earn
| billions [1] (2021), they have no incentives to change how
| it currently works.
|
| [1] https://www.tn.se/hallbarhet/kritiken-staten-tjanar-
| miljarde...
| moogly wrote:
| Facebook will have a much lower price anyway. Large industries
| (like steel plants, mining operations, paper mills, saw mills,
| and, yes, data centers) in Sweden have not been affected yet
| since they are not normally directly exposed to the spot price
| due to different price protection strategies[0]. There is no
| way Facebook pays consumer spot prices. Plus Sweden has the
| lowest electricity tax in the EU[1] for these companies. They
| raised it from 0 in 2019 due to EU regulations to 0.005
| SEK/kWh. Consumer electricity tax today is 0.45 SEK/kWh
| including VAT. I believe there is also a way to write off a
| part of the electricity costs.
|
| [0]: https://www.svd.se/a/rE0R9R/elpriserna-nar-inte-industrin-
| ha... (paywall)
|
| [1]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/lagst-elpriser-till-
| indus...
| thepasswordis wrote:
| To put this into more human terms: a tesla model Y has a 75kwh
| battery.
|
| So this means to charge it, at home, would cost between $0.75,
| $2.25, and $15.
|
| A normal air conditioner uses about 3.5kw. So if it runs for 6
| hours a day, so 21kwh/day. $0.21/day, $0.63/day, and $4.2/day.
| roflyear wrote:
| How much in Cali?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| If you're paying in Cali you can multiply the USD amount by
| 5000 to get the approximate cost in Colombian pesos
| kilovoltaire wrote:
| thanks for the context!
|
| small typo - air conditioner should be 3.5kw not kwh
| boshomi wrote:
| detailed information:
|
| Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE:
| https://energy-charts.info/index.html?l=en&c=DE
|
| and European Energy Exchange AG: https://www.eex.com/en/
| hericium wrote:
| Would be great if prices included transfer or would there be an
| option to see both. In some states the price of energy can be
| lower than the price of its transfer.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The transfer between regions isn't expensive compared to these
| prices, but they are capacity limited.
|
| What is relatively expensive may be the "retail delivery" to
| small-scale consumers, but that is excluded here as that price
| is not dependent on these daily fluctuations of generation;
| this is about the wholesale markets and the high-voltage
| networks.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Electricity map gives a more detailed view on the situation,
| including imports/exports:
|
| https://electricitymaps.com/
|
| Poland has an interesting story behind the price: the government
| passed legislation which switched from net-metering to net-
| billing with the start of April, so people rushed to build as
| many home PV installations as possible to get grandfathered into
| the previous scheme.
|
| A whopping 4-5GW estimated was added to the grid in this period,
| almost doubling the installed capacity, creating a unique mix of
| coal and solar in the summer.
|
| Now during the day it's what's keeping prices below EUR250/MWh
| because even with net-metering the price of this electricity is
| closer to EUR175/MWh.
|
| In 2019 that would have been horribly expensive, but it's safe to
| say those times are gone for good.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Also, we barely use gas - price is mostly driven by coal.
| anonporridge wrote:
| I imagine Poland was much more paranoid than Germany about
| becoming overly dependent on Russian gas.
|
| Of course, now Germany is scrambling to turn coal plants back
| online.
| [deleted]
| epolanski wrote:
| Poland simply produced most electricity with coal rather
| than gas for decades, even during communism.
|
| This is not related to Russia.
| tradertef wrote:
| Off topic:
|
| How did Apple allow their app in the App Store? It can easily be
| a website (no phone specific frameworks are used). There was a
| post that explained the difficulty they had for Apple to approve
| their application (music festivals).
| admissionsguy wrote:
| My move to Sweden continues to pay unexpected dividends. And what
| the map shows is I suppose based on the average for the whole
| country - it's several times cheaper in the north (the "real"
| Sweden with auroras and stuff) than in the south.
|
| Let's be real though, the society will fall apart before energy
| costs become a big problem for people working in tech.
| daneel_w wrote:
| I came here when I was 8 years old, and to me the "real" Sweden
| is everything from south to north, not just some single
| isolated part. I don't find the notion offensive, but it's
| contusive and somewhat foreign.
|
| It's great that your small urban household can take the hit.
| It's becoming a real problem for single parents in the south.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| I didn't mean to come off as offensive in this particular
| post, it was just an attempt at humour, hard to pull off
| online. I am actually completely oblivious as to whether this
| idea may or may not be offensive or strange to locals. Most
| people - even the Swedes - find the north rather harsh.
|
| > It's great that your small urban household can take the
| hit. It's becoming a real problem for single parents in the
| south.
|
| Meh, no bank wanted to give me a mortgage so I bought a cheap
| rural house. I am already subsidising the leveraged people's
| interest rates in my massive taxes, so excuse me if my
| sympathies do not extend very far.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Where did you live before? How hard was it to move there?
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Poland. As an EU citizen working online, it was as easy as
| buying a plane ticket, renting an AirBNB, registering a
| company, and waiting over a year until I got connected to the
| healthcare / social security system and such.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Wow that is really neat.
|
| Is there ever a problem with everyone wanting to move to
| all the good places haha? I wonder if they will get really
| expensive to live in like California and New York. Not that
| I'm saying CA and NY are the "good" places of USA but many
| perceive it that way.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| The house price inflation has been staggering across
| Sweden, but not so much in the rural north where I live.
| I don't think many people will ever want to move here,
| but for those with more mainstream idea of what a "good
| place" is, yeah, it's getting ever harder.
| badpun wrote:
| Language barriers prevent that to a large degree. People
| mostly move for better jobs, often only temporarily (for
| a couple of years), and largely only if their current
| area is econmically depressed.
| andrepd wrote:
| Nitpick: the iberian market is portrayed as "Spain" when it
| should be "Spain + Portugal".
| pelasaco wrote:
| No prices for Portugal?
|
| Why in Spain is the electricity so cheap?
| locallost wrote:
| This is nothing. If you want to panic, check the futures markets
| for the next 2 quarters, especially France.
|
| So I think short term we are pretty screwed. But I think if you
| can produce electricity at 1/10 or even 1/20 of the price,
| wouldn't you be adding new capacity now? The only fast option are
| renewables, so my wild guess is that there will be so much new
| capacity added in the next years, the bottleneck will not be
| production, but skilled labor to install it. That's the way a
| real market economy should react.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| The thing about "short term screwed" is that in some countries
| the "screwed" is actually "people having to pay more than 100 %
| of their income for electricity".
|
| Theoretically, long term, this could all work out nicely and
| steer more people and governments towards renewables and
| decentralized generation, but the short term consequences are
| starting to look brutal.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I expect some major support programs will be put in place to
| address this. And it will probably involve a bit of money
| printing. No sane government is going to let its citizens
| deal with going bankrupt because of massively higher energy
| prices. So Germany, France, etc. will do whatever needs doing
| to prevent that.
|
| The real problem will be industry having to shut down or
| minimize operations. They'll be the ones bearing the real
| cost. This winter will be brutal in terms of its economical
| impact on industry. The next one, countries will be better
| prepared. It's Russia that will be suffering the consequences
| long term. I doubt any country in Europe wants to ever be
| dependent on them again to the extent that they have in the
| past.
| Sakos wrote:
| I've seen a report or two talking about how fertilizer
| plants are being shutdown or run at reduced capacity across
| Europe because of gas costs. Electricity is the least of
| our problems.
| chewz wrote:
| Oh, It is much more then just fertilizer plants.
| Fertilizer plants stoped this week all over EU. (Yara
| Norway, Azoty Poland etc.)
|
| The moment you stop fertilizer plants you stop supplies
| of CO2 and NO2 industry gases and that stops dairy
| plants, meat factories, breweries etc... Basically you
| stop food production and distribution. And after cows get
| culled and you have 2-3 years before production can come
| back to initial levels.
|
| It is going to be rather tough decade for Europe.... And
| not just Europe...
|
| Europe's Energy Crisis Threatens Glass Production
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-energy-crisis-
| threatens...
|
| There's a Carbon Dioxide Shortage, and Food and Drink
| Makers are Scrambling
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/food-beverage-companies-
| race-to...
| Sakos wrote:
| > It is going to be rather tough decade for Europe....
| And not just Europe...
|
| The EU is the biggest exporter of food next to the US.
| Much of the world is going to be affected.
| sph wrote:
| > I expect some major support programs will be put in place
| to address this. And it will probably involve a bit of
| money printing.
|
| One of the two Tory lunatics^Hhopeful candidates for PM
| confirmed there's not much they can do to ease the energy
| price crisis without creating a massive hole in the British
| budget. But that's what countries will have to do, and it's
| not going to be pretty.
|
| The Western world just went on a massive printing spree two
| years ago because of COVID, a further temporary injection
| of capital and 2008 will pale in comparison to the next
| recession.
| locallost wrote:
| No, we agree here. I'm not trying to minimize the impact.
| Factories will shut down, leading to job loses, shortages
| which will again cause inflation etc.
|
| But we can't change that anymore. What we can do is build
| more capacity.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Factories will shut down, leading to job loses, shortages
| which will again cause inflation etc
|
| Not necessarily. The same thing (forced closures of
| factories) was handled gracefully without job losses during
| the pandemic through various unemployment schemes. I see no
| reason why the same can't happen again.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Those schemes are responsible for tremendous inflation
| which is part of the reason why energy prices are high
| compared to incomes today. There is no free lunch.
| origin_path wrote:
| There is obviously another option that people don't want to
| point out - start buying Russian gas again. The idea
| they're resisting to sell it is wrong. There's a whole
| pipeline lying idle ready to go the moment sanctions are
| lifted.
|
| People are acting like this is a natural crisis. It's not,
| it's an artificial one created by political choices. This
| will lead to political extremism as voters realize they are
| freezing or bankrupted because politicians like "standing
| with Ukraine" more than they like their own citizens. Not
| every politician will be like that. Some will say, we send
| weapons and it's not our war anyway. Citizens first,
| foreigners second. And suddenly that will be mainstream
| politics.
| anticristi wrote:
| > start buying Russian gas again
|
| I'm afraid Europe bought a one-way ticket. Dependence on
| Russian energy is no longer a hypothetical issue, but a
| demonstrated concern. Freezing is not great, but giving
| the thermostat back to Putin is worse.
| timeon wrote:
| > There is obviously another option that people don't
| want to point out - start buying Russian gas again
|
| What I think is more likely is that coal is back on the
| menu.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| We can also change policy to make sure we don't get into
| this kind of situation again. We, as a world, don't seem to
| want to do that.
| kkfx wrote:
| The only fast option is another: arrest those who control the
| current energy market for crime against humanity and re-
| nationalize the sector. Really. With them in jail FOR LIFE
| other like them will do their best to avoid getting equally in
| jails and States have nothing to deal with "prices".
|
| For instance in France more than half of the national NPP are
| offline due to needed maintenance the private owners postpone
| at maximum to maximize their profit. Arrange the result take
| time. Jail the aforementioned owners telling anyone in the
| private sector that if they committed criminal business they
| can choose to be silent and cooperative of face an equal fate
| will suffice.
|
| Private sector is THE SOLE responsible of the current prices,
| they do not came from war or natural scarcity. Telling them
| that "good times are passed" _for them_ not for the Citizens at
| a whole as they want instead suffice for a quick U-turn since
| they know they are unarmed.
|
| Renewables can't be nor fast nor an option simply because the
| sole that can live on them at unbearably high prices in the
| actual market are single private NEW homes in places where p.v.
| is effective enough and climate is not that cold. In a city, a
| dense European one, there is no room for renewables to really
| produce energy, you can only make some show for commercial
| purposes. Oh, I say that as one who actually have built a new
| home five years ago, with p.v. and small lithium backup, so to
| speak.
|
| The quickest way is one: telling those who profit that revenge
| sentiments start to be in the air and they will FAIL to ride
| them to push a new hoax this time. However since people are not
| in that mood, actually many have thirst for blood but not for
| positive actions energy giants and their public friends are not
| startled at all. That's is.
| Tenoke wrote:
| Should I panic enough in Germany to be wise to consider moving
| away? Where as a European?
| 323 wrote:
| > _Looking for a change of scene?_
|
| > _Russia's "beautiful women, cheap gas, and traditional
| values" await you, according to a bizarre new video shared by
| a Russian embassy._
|
| > _The 53 second clip urges foreigners to "move to Russia" by
| listing the country's supposed virtues._
|
| https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/08/01/beautiful-
| women-a...
| anticristi wrote:
| On a tangent, I read that 500 Russian soldiers die daily.
| Given that they are 19-22 old, I expect a huge gender
| disbalance in the coming generation. So yeah, pressure on
| Russian women to be "beautiful" (whatever that means to the
| dating market) will increase. Kind of cynical to advertise
| a self-fulfilling prophecy.
| andrepd wrote:
| You should definitely not move countries due to a post in
| hackernews.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I'm hardly hearing about the electricity issue in Europe
| only from a single HN post.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Time to go to Tromso. Forget about autobahn or even seeing
| the sun in the winter. Time for us to emigrate in northern
| norway where the electricity is still cheap.
| bitL wrote:
| Yes, move to Dubai, it's the most stable part of the world
| right now, and you aren't going to freeze.
| tuukkah wrote:
| To a house that is not heated by direct electricity (nor by
| gas), or to one where you have installed some other source of
| heating such as heat pumps or district heating.
| legulere wrote:
| What do you think the heat pump and district heating runs
| on? Heat pumps still need electricity and district heating
| is often using gas.
| PeterisP wrote:
| It's not a gas vs no-gas issue - if you need much less
| gas for the same size house, then you have removed most
| of the impact on you.
| tuukkah wrote:
| These don't mean you'd be completely de-risked, but your
| electricity bill will be a fraction of what it would be
| otherwise and you'll end up relatively well off.
|
| My district heat comes from a giant heat pump that
| extracts energy from waste water etc. Some other typical
| district heat sources are biomass and coal. If it's
| typical to rely on gas, perhaps check that they have a
| plan to convert to some other energy sources if needed.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Mine in Copenhagen runs mostly from 'waste' heat from
| electricity production and waste incineration.
|
| The price (last time I checked) is the same as last year.
| konschubert wrote:
| Actually for Sunday the day-ahead prices look quite low:
| https://energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.ht...
| Sevii wrote:
| No you would only add capacity if you thought the long term
| trends supported it. Building large power generation facilities
| is expensive and takes time. If prices go back to normal in the
| spring those new builds could end up as massive money losers.
| konschubert wrote:
| Bottlenecks are:
|
| - Planning permissions take too long
|
| - Solar panels and especially inverters are hard to get
|
| - Labour to install is scarce. Electricians give you
| appointments next year.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| We're not screwed. We're just witnessing the accelerated death
| of the fossil fuel based power generation industry and it's
| making renewable power extremely lucrative. Prices are high
| because of gas prices. Except it's August and Europe is
| producing a lot of solar power and a fair bit of wind power.
| That's why there are no blackouts. There is no power shortage;
| just a gas shortage. Europe has plenty of reserves to generate
| power. It's just not going to be cheap to use those reserves.
| The current crisis is not a capacity crisis but a fuel cost
| crisis. Anybody who was complacent about renewables is going to
| be paying the price for that this winter. Anybody who wasn't is
| going to reap the rewards.
|
| High prices for electricity and no production cost for
| renewables basically means whomever produces using that is
| making a lot of money right now. More than 5x of what they
| could reasonably expect normally. Probably closer to 10x.
| That's great news because that will be invested in even more
| renewable power. Solar and wind are the closest thing to a
| perpetuum mobile that you can get right now.
|
| Electricity prices are high because all the gas and coal
| production is being kept at a minimum rate because of the high
| cost of fuel. Companies still in the business of burning that
| have to pay such high prices for fuel that it's cheaper for
| them to shut down operations. Unless they are absolutely needed
| in which case they'll charge for the fuel cost of course.
|
| However, most of Europe is relying on renewables and topping up
| gas supplies for the winter instead. E.g. Germany hit their 80%
| reserves target ahead of schedule a few days ago, So, any gas
| plant that doesn't absolutely have to be on right now has
| probably been idling for months. No reason to turn those on.
|
| The reason France has a tough few quarters ahead is that quite
| a few of their aging nuclear power plants are down for
| maintenance right now. They'll be importing power from abroad
| and probably at high rates. A perfect little storm of overdue
| maintenance and an international gas/oil market that suddenly
| shifted. They'll be fine. But it will cost them.
| badpun wrote:
| > We're not screwed.
|
| Are you sure? Is Europe technically capable of importing
| enough gas to offset what is no longer coming from Russia?
| Our abilities to import natural gal from outside UE (LNG
| terminals and pipelines) have limited throughput - not to
| mention, someone needs to be willing and able to fill them
| with gas first.
| Sakos wrote:
| We're currently importing far more gas than we did before
| the war.
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52758
| locallost wrote:
| I agree with all that, but in the short term things are going
| to be very expensive. As I already wrote, I see it as an
| opportunity to do what you said - ditch fossil fuels for
| good. There's no point in doing anything else, like whining.
| But if you think the landing will be anything other than
| rough, then we'll have to disagree.
| pydry wrote:
| Currently the only feasible thing that is going to make
| enough difference is to buy gas from Russia again.
|
| Everything else is something we should have done 5 or even
| 15 years ago so as to not end up in this position.
| adventured wrote:
| Announce a $1 trillion nuclear build-out plan for the EU,
| to build at least 50-60 new nuclear power plants. Go big,
| really big, and get started on it soon. Why can't Europe
| go Manhattan Project / Apollo big for such a critical
| matter? It's cowardice, a lack of daring, if they choose
| not to. They have the expertise, they have the financial
| capability, they are lacking the will (so far).
|
| To an extent you can scare markets into providing cheaper
| prices in a variety of ways.
|
| That goes for scaring Russia, which is still living in a
| fantasy bubble about the context. They do not believe the
| rest of Europe can or will become independent of their
| supply.
| pydry wrote:
| >Announce a $1 trillion nuclear build-out plan
|
| Ready in 10-20 years.
| mk89 wrote:
| > Announce a $1 trillion nuclear ...
|
| Do you know who is in charge in Germany?
|
| The greens, which don't even want to extend the usage of
| 3 of the 6 available nuclear plants (supposed to "slowly"
| shut down at the end of this year).
|
| And now you come and say "hey sorry but we need more
| nuclear reactors"? Sure. Much better to go to countries
| which are barely respecting human rights, bow and buy
| their fuel and gas, because finally who cares, we don't
| see what they do in their countries.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > Do you know who is in charge in Germany? The greens
|
| ... No ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag
| mk89 wrote:
| The greens are part of the current government, I wonder
| what's not clear about the previous message?
| boshomi wrote:
| Eye watering French power prices:
|
| * Baseload from nov22 to feb23 above 2000EUR/MWh
|
| * Peak Load nov22 to dec22 at 3000EUR/MWh
|
| * Peak Load Q1/23 at 2970EUR/MWh
|
| But the prices for other nations also went up steeply.
|
| [1] https://www.eex.com/en/market-
| data/power/futures#%7B%22snipp...
| andrepd wrote:
| France has a shitload of nuclear capacity and low dependence
| on gas. Why is their energy rising so much?
| konschubert wrote:
| Because their nuclear power plants are currently going
| belly up one after another.
|
| Many of them are the same model, with parts from the same
| factory. That factory made some bad parts. They need to be
| exchanged. It takes a lot of time, many months.
| paraboul wrote:
| This is not entirely true. Some power plants are just
| coincidentally under planned maintenance.
| jakewins wrote:
| Also significant capacity loss from plants unable to run
| in droughts, since they rely on cooling water that has
| now dried up.
|
| Nukes reliant on Loire valley water are currently
| curtailing production.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Nukes reliant on Loire valley water are currently
| curtailing production.
|
| That's old information, the Loire is back up to normal
| levels after the last two weeks of rain, so nuclear power
| plants should be operating as before.
| boshomi wrote:
| Production continues to fall so far: https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=FR&...
| boshomi wrote:
| Only 23GW out of 60GW of French nuclar power capacity is
| working.
| czottmann wrote:
| Heat wave. The water used for cooling the plant is usually
| released into nearby rivers which due to the current heat
| waves are too hot already; to avoid the rivers boiling &
| dying the power plants can't release any more water. No
| cooling possible, and the plants have to put in standby.
|
| At least that's my understanding of the situation.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Nice! Feel now the benefits of marginal pricing.
|
| Where 90% of the electricity producers make profits out of
| nowhere, just because some inefficient folks had to provide the
| 10% of missing energy.
|
| Like Saudi Aramco and Chevron, they will post record profits,
| without lifting a finger.
| jontro wrote:
| Each country has more than one zone. Also the rate varies hour by
| hour
| JohnTordur wrote:
| Not Germany, they have single price zone which is absolutely
| insane. Denmark has two and is much smaller.
| biehl wrote:
| It makes sense for Denmark to have two, as each of them is
| connected to different larger markets and have limited
| interconnection between each other.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It also makes sense for Germany to have at least two, since
| North and South are very different in terms of production
| and consumption but have limited interconnect. Any fix for
| that is endlessly blocked by NIMBYs who don't feel the cost
| of their decisions.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Western half of Denmark is on the european/continental
| synchronous grid and the eastern half of Denmark is on the
| nordic synchronous grid.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| It would also make sense for Germany but they don't want
| two zones. That also causes issues for connected countries.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Sweden doesn't want more than one zone either, but was
| forced into it.
| legulere wrote:
| Luxemburg also is in the same zone as Germany and Austria
| used to be too.
| thomond wrote:
| They have an incomplete dataset, I wonder why PT and IE is
| missing?
| thdespou wrote:
| Lol can't see Ireland
| [deleted]
| lorenzotenti wrote:
| What are the main causes for these differences? And why Italians
| always manage to be first in the worst ranking?
| wewxjfq wrote:
| Italy has a high percentage of gas power plants and also relies
| heavily on imported electricity from France.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > And why Italians always manage to be first in the worst
| ranking?
|
| in this specific case 3 reason:
|
| - Italy relies on natural gas, we had long standing
| relationships with Libya and Algeria for that, unfortunately
| France bombed Libya to kill Gheddafi (to claim control of the
| area mainly) and that destabilized the area [1]
|
| - Italy relies on close countries to buy electricity,
| especially France. Now that they have switched off nuclear
| plants, electricity from France costs more.
|
| - we are in electoral campaign, elections are next month, a
| good chunk of the right wing political landscape supports (or
| doesn't strongly oppose) Putin, they hope that by creating an
| energy crisis in Italy, people will vote for them. Which is
| probably what's really going to happen, for Putin's delight.
| [2]
|
| [1] WikiLekas has a lot of documents on it, it's also one of
| the interventions that costed Hillary Clinton the elections.
|
| [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/10/italy-election-
| russia-u...
|
| EDIT: I understand that on HN people don't like political
| opinions, but these are not my opinions. added notes.
| skrause wrote:
| The main causes are the gas crisis and the fact that France has
| shut down around half of its nuclear reactors due to corrosion
| and cooling problems, so Germany now has to burn even more gas
| and coal for electricity exports to France.
| halper wrote:
| Limits on transmission capacity. If the cables had been bigger,
| costs would have been more or less the same.
| kkfx wrote:
| Consider a thing: prices are MEANINGLESS, really. At a certain
| point people will revolt, simply. The revolt might be ride or not
| but the actual profiteers (or some puppets, who appear
| adversaries to many people's eyes but that's just theater, like
| the actual far-right movements) but it will happen. At that point
| PP will simply run depending on their technical capacity, no one
| will talk about price or consumption in different terms.
|
| That's an old classic we already see at the start of '900 where
| the level of rapacious businesses and corruption reach a break
| point. To save themselves in skin the failed profiteers choose to
| push nazi-fascism with success, apparently those dictatorship was
| a new and different beast but in reality they just makes the
| public actions needed to keep a country run, leaving profit to
| the private, for some time. The profit part makes the game last
| little time, a war was needed (see Ucraine and Taiwan next), and
| after the war a new start. It's a cycle who can last until or all
| the world became capitalist in the same way and so there is
| nothing left to steal or we simply have depleted enough resources
| to be unable to survive as a modern civilization or for some
| miracles people decide that enough is enough REALLY and act
| positively instead of destructively, something almost never
| happened reading the history.
| scottmcdot wrote:
| From the perspective of a retail electricity customer, would
| knowing this help reduce your bill?
| liversage wrote:
| In Denmark electric power consumption of homes have decreased
| by 10% in 2022. Apps that provide the variable hourly rate
| today and tomorrow are increasingly popular, and they are used
| to plan the best time to perform tasks that require
| electricity.
|
| https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/penge/danskernes-stroemforbrug-er-...
| WJW wrote:
| Only if it makes you decide to use less electricity.
| fontanka16 wrote:
| Sweden is divided in four areas with huge price differences
| between them (20x) , due to bottle necks in the network and very
| few electrical plants in the south of Sweden where most people
| live.
|
| https://www.elbruk.se/
| bitL wrote:
| I've read somewhere that Czechs (day ahead price of 463EUR/MWh)
| produce electricity at 0.1EUR/MWh, then sell it to an exchange in
| Germany and buy it back for the "market" price. Somebody over
| there is getting extremely rich for no reason and I am wondering
| why nobody is doing anything about it...
| consp wrote:
| Purely speculative but sounds more like greenwashing to me:
| sell grey energy on market at loss, buy back mixed or even
| green due to some loophole, collect subsidies which cover the
| difference or even more.
| gruez wrote:
| You must have omitted something in your example because it
| makes no sense.
|
| >Czechs produce electricity at 0.1EUR/MWh
|
| so far so good. Now you have -0.1EUR and 1MWh of power.
|
| >then sell it to an exchange in Germany
|
| suppose the market price is 400EUR. after selling it to an
| exchange you have 399.9EUR and 0 MWh of power
|
| >and buy it back for the "market" price.
|
| so you buy it back at the market price. Now you have -0.1EUR
| and 1MWh of power. That leaves you off... in the same position
| as step 1? What's the point in selling it to the exchange and
| buying it back?
|
| Moreover, I don't see anything interesting happening here. You
| can replace "electricity" with "oil" and you basically describe
| how petro states work (ie. pump oil out of the ground, sell it
| on the global market for far more than it costs for you to pump
| it out of the ground).
| redleader55 wrote:
| There are several energy markets, not just one. The most
| energy is bought and sold on private contracts on very long
| term. Then there is the "next-day" market, which is what this
| app shows. Then there is an hourly market to match instant
| demand and supply variations.
|
| It is possible Czech producers sold energy to Germany for a
| very low price a few years ago on a let's say 5 year contract
| which is still valid. Now Czech Republic needs to buy at a
| high price the energy from Germany because it cannot meet its
| own demand. Again, this is speculation on how that could
| work.
| tgv wrote:
| That would be two different people/organizations.
| [deleted]
| chii wrote:
| the OP meant that the producer is allowed to sell to the
| higher priced exchange, rather than being forced to sell it
| at a low price to the consumer. Therefore, the OP is assuming
| that someone at the exchange is going to profit nicely
| without having done any work by arbitraging the sale of
| electricity.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I'm guessing that the missing variable is "cost plus"
| pricing for consumers? By selling the electricity on the
| market and then buying it back they can increase the price
| for consumer.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| >I've read somewhere that Czechs (day ahead price of
| 463EUR/MWh) produce electricity at 0.1EUR/MWh
|
| No, that's entirely unrealistic. 0.1EUR per KWh is realistic,
| so my guess is that you misremembered the units. The price per
| MWh would then be 100 EUR. But not even that is realistic
| anymore for the Czech Republic, given they produce most energy
| from fossil fuels[1], and the prices recently have skyrocketed.
|
| Now you may ask why they'd be selling to an exchange and buying
| it back for more (if that actually happens to a degree that
| matters). One reason is of course profit. Although one must not
| confuse the production price with the final consumer price or
| even the exchange price. Production is one thing, getting the
| power to where it's needed is another thing, accounting, taxes
| and so on.
|
| Another reason for putting it into exchanges, is that they
| might at times produce more than needed, so selling off excess
| production seems somewhat reasonable as the kind of plants they
| are running cannot be started and stopped at will. At other
| times, they might not be producing enough, and then need to buy
| at exchanges.
|
| It's not as easy as assuming somebody is just grabbing a lot of
| money. Although some money grabbing is most likely part of the
| answer as well.
|
| Germany is selling energy as well, by the way. Germany has thus
| far net exported around 20 TWh this year[2]. The entire energy
| need of Germany is around 540 TWh per annum. That would suggest
| Germany (thus far) has exported a little over 5% of it's energy
| production to other European nations in this crisis year. It
| may have something to do with France currently having
| temporarily shut down 32 of its 56 nuclear reactors[3], with a
| net 10 TWh being exported from Germany in the direction of
| France. And it probably has something to do with Germany
| producing a lot more energy than it needs when the sun is
| shining and the wind is blowing nicely.
|
| The Czech Republic on the other hand exported 6 TWh net to
| Slovakia and another 4 TWh to Austria. But in turn Slovakia
| exported almost 9 TWh to Hungary[4].
|
| That is to say... it's complicated.
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/countries/czech-republic
|
| [2] https://www.energy-
| charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&...
|
| [3] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-
| prolongs-...
|
| [4] https://www.energy-
| charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.ht... (might be lagging
| behind a little)
| mechagodzilla wrote:
| That would almost certainly be the price per kilowatt-hour, not
| megawatt-hour, which would make a MWh ~100EUR. Anybody that is
| getting rich on the energy markets right now is either because
| they're better at betting on future energy prices than their
| rivals, or they have the ability to produce electricity when
| demand for it is extraordinarily high (both of which would
| qualify as 'a reason').
| bitL wrote:
| Thanks, will need to find the source again and see if it was
| indeed 0.1/kWh and not MWh (talking about production costs at
| a cheaper country with nuclear power plants fully paid for in
| the past).
|
| EDIT: Just found out production costs from another source:
|
| Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant - 20.31EUR/MWh
|
| Temelin Nuclear Power Plant - 34.52EUR/MWh
| jdross wrote:
| 10 cents for a megawatt of electricity is an unheard of
| marginal cost in any situation.
|
| your local costs in the US range from 5-25 cents per
| kilowatt hour (1/1000 of that), with ideal solar being the
| cheapest amortized at roughly 3 cents/kwh
| bitL wrote:
| I just cross-checked the source and the claim by one of
| their members of parliament was the price was 0.25CZK/MWh
| which is ~0.01EUR/MWh in fact.
| ravel-bar-foo wrote:
| This suggests that either the MP is incorrect, or they
| were misquoted, or some sort of accounting shenanigans
| are going on (infrastructure costs already paid for,
| etc.)
| bitL wrote:
| One of those for sure. My guess is that the MP was trying
| to score with their voters and bent the numbers.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| I've read somewhere that Earth has 4 corner simultaneous 4-day,
| and that was from the wisest man on earth.
|
| Best not to believe everything you read :)
| ISL wrote:
| Assuming that these statements are entirely true (sibling
| comments suggest otherwise), then "somebody over there" had the
| foresight or luck to install generating capacity ahead of
| tremendous demand.
|
| If they hadn't done so, someone else might be getting even-more
| rich (per kWhr) by charging higher prices across an even wider
| geography.
| bitL wrote:
| Those nuclear power plants were built during communism there
| so nobody had any kind of foresight.
| dmw_ng wrote:
| That very much sounds like you're calling for the collapse of
| the integrated european energy market. This is not meant as an
| attack on you, just an observation that these nationalistic
| calls will continue growing louder from every part of the
| continent, and it is not even September yet. Already Norway has
| publicly commented on the possibility of rationing exports.
|
| We have yet to even scratch the surface of the effects of this
| crisis
| bitL wrote:
| During the time of energy crisis why would the integrated
| energy market be the highest priority? Is it more important
| to trade, or to keep economy running utilizing whatever local
| advantages available?
| dmw_ng wrote:
| That is true, and why not also ignore the frictions created
| by a single currency, free movement of labour and people,
| or the harmonization of judicial systems during times of
| crisis. Surely under such strain, it is only fair that
| Germany no longer subsidizes Italian public debt, institute
| border controls for the transport of gas and oil,
| eventually instituting controls for all energy-derived
| products of any kind where a pricing inefficiency is being
| exploited by any neighbour. It would mean Putin responded
| to our sanctions by destroying 70 years of European
| cooperation, and doing so without even so much as firing a
| single bullet.
|
| Energy _is_ the economy, and the failure of an integrated
| energy market means the failure of so much more.
| bitL wrote:
| That sounds like a fallacy of composition. Energy market
| is just one part of the whole and right now a very weak
| part. Capping the profits/restructuring the market
| temporarily would benefit the whole more than keeping
| running the same old approach that is literally
| destroying the economy right now.
| PeterisP wrote:
| There is an energy crisis across all regions of Europe;
| disrupting trade may help some places but hurt others much
| more and would make it worse in aggregate, so EU treaties
| prohibit that.
|
| I mean, whenever electricity is being exported at high
| cost, that high cost is an indication that this other place
| has it even worse; and blocking trade would make
| electricity cheaper at the exporting place, but cause a
| larger spike (and possibly even blackouts with the
| associated economic disruption) at the importing place and
| also remove the economic incentives to increase surplus
| production at places who can do it cheaper than others.
| bitL wrote:
| That's in theory; in practice there is a bunch of
| resellers that are making crazy amount of money due to
| "merit pricing" that makes sense in a stable market, but
| not now. The places you mention are much worse off than
| by a simple price ceiling per electricity type.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| This is really a contentless comment. It sounds like they are
| doing something that you deem problematic and nefarious
| according to your own ideology? So what?
| jacquesm wrote:
| That doesn't happen.
| epolanski wrote:
| You either accept capitalism and free market or you don't.
|
| I don't like it but if that's the system we need to accept the
| pros and cons.
| blibble wrote:
| that's the advantage of the Single Market
| capableweb wrote:
| > why nobody is doing anything about it
|
| > I've read somewhere
|
| Before wondering why someone, somewhere is not doing something,
| confirm that the thing is actually happening in the first
| place.
| neverrroot wrote:
| This. Exactly this. Truth is old school.
| thrwaway9871 wrote:
| Not Czech but how it works here:
|
| * I choose energy provider x
|
| * Friend has bought a part of those remote solar plants and
| also connected to provider x
|
| * Friend sells his surplus energy to provider x at low price
|
| * Provider x can now sell the power to:
|
| a) His customers (me), and make next to nothing
|
| b) Sell it to the international grid and make bank, then
| proceed to buy energy for me at going rates making me foot
| the whole bill.
|
| Guess what happens, and who gets rich. This is market
| liberalization at work. You reap what you have sown.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| >Friend sells his surplus energy to provider x at low price
|
| Sorry if this is a dumb question but why can't he sell at
| the going rate for international grid?
| maxerickson wrote:
| The grid operator won't make an agreement to move a
| little bit of power that is advantageous to the small
| producer.
|
| So in essence, because they can't get it there.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Sounds like they're exploiting their monopoly over the
| connections that small producers need.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Sure, more or less. But there are real costs and
| financial costs of getting the power to the other market,
| and they are probably being forced by regulation to buy
| the power at all (prices won't always be tipped in the
| one direction).
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I have no clue about Czechia but that's basically happening
| in Austria. Austria mainly produces energy from renewables
| which did not go up in price buy since the price on the
| exchanges is determined by the most expensive source we still
| pay exorbitant prices. Producers are making all the money
| right now.
| paganel wrote:
| It has been happening here in Romania for more than a
| decade now, our previous president even called them out as
| "the smart guys from the power industry" (where "smart" was
| used in a derogatory way), of course that nothing came out
| of it all.
|
| There were also a couple of curious deaths happening in the
| industry (the head of our State-owned hydro company, who
| died in his late 30s, the local boss of a power utility,
| who just threw himself from his balcony), but nothing came
| out of that, either.
|
| Most probably part of the huge proceeds end up in the
| accounts connected to our intelligence agencies (the heirs
| of the former Securitate, which have split into several
| agencies after 1990).
| mbg721 wrote:
| Is that a recoil from the Eastern-Bloc era worship of
| intellectuals, or is it completely separate, or something
| else? Americans are often accused of undervaluing people
| who pursue intellectual professions and propping up "Joe
| the Plumber," which is why I ask.
| paganel wrote:
| I think it dates to before WW2, it's the spirit of "he
| was smart enough to fool the State/those in command, he
| deserves all our respect".
| balderdash wrote:
| The marginal cost of production didn't go up for
| renewables, but that's not the price setting mechanism, the
| Austrian people demanded more electricity than renewables
| could provide, so the price rose until it was high enough
| to justify turning on the gas fired plants and where the
| Czechs and Germans would be willing to sell power to the
| Austrians...
|
| Also the people that are "making all the money" now that
| power prices are super high, stood to loose money if power
| prices were super low, why shouldn't they be compensated
| for bearing that risk?
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| > the Austrian people demanded more electricity than
| renewables could provide, so the price rose until it was
| high enough to justify turning on the gas fired plants
| and where the Czechs and Germans would be willing to sell
| power to the Austrians...
|
| That's not what is happening. If Austria was an isolated
| market the prices were significantly lower at the moment.
| But I would not want to separate the markets just because
| it works out better to us at the moment.
| tomp wrote:
| By "producers" of course you mean "those producers that
| invested in sovereign energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind,
| ...)"
|
| Sounds like good investments are paying off, and bad
| investments (Germany collaborating with Putin despite
| Trump's prescient advice & mockery) are not.
|
| Capitalism at it's finest! Too bad average people are
| paying the price, but in democracy, that's literally what
| they voted for (non-sensical top-down EU bureaucratic green
| energy mandates, instead of investments into better tech &
| bottom-up sovereign energy investments).
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are trying to say. The reasons for
| the energy prices have nothing to do with any European
| bureaucracy. If anything more investments into green
| energy would have put us into a better position.
| google234123 wrote:
| The European bureaucracy is what dismantled all the old
| cheap energy production and forced massive investment and
| massive subsidies in renewable energy that can't actually
| cope with the real load.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Isn't the inability of _nuclear_ plants to keep
| production up part of the problem? If anything, the
| screwed up electricity markets in Germany killed oil and
| gas plants by favoring flexible production costs. And
| there it is solar /eind followed by hydro and coal on
| third. Germany even built new coal plants, the latest of
| which didn't get a legal construction permit and thus
| operations oermit in the first place. Bad
| environmentalists, paid by Putin to push for _any_ energy
| source other than gas for electricity!
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| The drivers of high prices are broken nuclear power
| plants, high gas prices due to a war and record draughts
| causing issues for hydro. None of these are caused by
| European bureaucracy.
| hef19898 wrote:
| To use your words, Germany already collaborated with the
| good old old communist USSR under Brechnev. Thing is, so,
| Germany isn't using Russian gas (which was delivered
| reliably since the 60s) to produce electricity but for
| heating, industry and chemicals.
|
| Funny, I remember when we had similar discussions about
| _negative_ electricity prices and people mockes those
| capital intensive legacy producers. Well, history is so
| old and context too complex to bother if polemism does as
| well.
| chii wrote:
| which would give more producers (and wana-be-producers) the
| incentive to invest in renewables to take a piece of that
| profit pie.
|
| Doesnt seem like a bad outcome tbh.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Considering most Europeans won't be able to afford
| electricity and there is no increased investments into
| renewables as a result of this insanity it looks like an
| abysmal outcome. In fact it's so bad that very likely it
| will slowly set into motion all kinds of bad workarounds
| that will utterly destroy the economy.
| seydor wrote:
| Wait, if they invest too much, then natural gas will not
| be needed, and prices will steeply fall. So better not
| invest (too much), right?
| bitL wrote:
| OK, what's the truth then? I am not an expert on this, though
| just today I saw some LinkedIn post of some trader explaining
| merit price on energy market and in the chart the nuclear
| power was two orders of magnitude cheaper than gas/combined
| power but the final price was at the level of gas/combined
| power.
| agarsev wrote:
| In Spain (and according to a sister comment, in Austria
| too, so maybe it's EU-wide) the price of every MWh is set
| by the last MWh that enters the market (apparently it works
| like an auction). The last to be sold is the most
| expensive, thus renewables are being priced like combined
| due to this rule. In fact there was some scandal in Spain I
| seem to remember because apparently energy companies were
| doing the expected according to the incentives set, which
| is manipulating production so that combined is _always_
| used, increasing profit by doing nothing.
| [deleted]
| hhjinks wrote:
| No idea about the Czech, but that's exactly what's happening
| in Norway. Due to trade agreements with the EU, we can not
| discriminate between national and EU customers when selling
| electricity. To be completely accurate, we aren't selling on
| a German exchange, we're selling on local ones, but those
| local exchanges are experiencing price pressure from EU
| customers due to export capacity recently being increased due
| to the completion of several new power cables to the EU and
| UK.
| DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
| The grandparent could have done a better job explaining
| what she meant. You've explained it much better. EU rules
| forbid discrimination between domestic and EEA customers in
| electricity markets. Therefore, any _significantly_
| interconnected country to the rest of the EU will have
| similar prices.
|
| Countries like Norway, which have abundant, cheap,
| generation, are paying EEA prices in its highly
| interconnected bidding zones (NO1,NO2). The next few
| months, if prices persist, are likely to see lots of
| pressure from Norwegians to curtail exports (i.e. close off
| transmission capacity to EEA). This would significantly
| decrease prices for Norwegians, but damage the EU's
| integrity. The same can be said of other countries with
| abundant, cheap generation that are suffering the
| consequences of other EEA countries' actions w.r.t their
| electricity supply.
|
| I say this as a supporter of the EU, but the integrated
| electricity market's future is in peril this winter.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| EDF, the French electricity provider is able to produce
| electricity at about 20EUR/MWh. It is forced to sell it to
| leeches (read: "competition"), up to 100TWh, at 42EUR/MWh
| through a mechanism called ARENH. Should they need this
| 100TWh (and they do), they are forced to buy it at current
| market prices, or anywhere between 530 and 715EUR/MWh.
|
| The "competition" are resellers that have not installed a
| single MW of production, essentially leading to starving what
| used to be the most talented and biggest energy producer in
| Europe, all under the pretense of the free market. The
| resellers are actively dropping clients so they do not have
| to not buy on the open market.
|
| It is happening, and is happening with the blessing of our
| leaders just greasing billionaire pockets.
| bombcar wrote:
| Enron was in the wrong market!
| bitL wrote:
| OK, you have confirmed my worries there is some well-
| connected mafia operating in that market.
| legulere wrote:
| Can they produce electricity though? Half their nuclear
| reactors are down.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Because of delayed checkups caused by COVID, and thanks
| to the independence of the ASN who could unilaterally
| stop the plants to fix unplanned corrosion. Most of them
| are starting to come back up, and 90% of usual production
| is planned to be back by December.
|
| Or, said in other ways, it took an extremely rare event
| that lasted long enough to throw off plans that are made
| on the scale of years, in addition with a bit of bad
| luck, and lasts a few months. I'd say they damn well can
| produce electricity in normal times, yes. But indeed,
| their need to buy electricity is compounded by that.
| sph wrote:
| > It is forced to sell it to leeches
|
| By whom?
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| EDF is owned at 80% by the state, and the state has
| instituted the ARENH through law. Needless to say, EDF
| not going into this would mean someone else is replaced
| at the head and it still goes on. It's a classic starve
| the beast play.
| mirko22 wrote:
| Don't know about other countries but several people were
| arrested today in Croatia cos of similar business practices:)
| fest wrote:
| Some politicians in Latvia are using the same rhetoric: our
| hydro plants have a production cost of 0.1x/MWh, but nordpool
| price is xMWh. Somebody is stuffing their pockets!!
|
| What they don't say is: some of our hydro plants are being
| maintained and the rest are capable of generating a fraction of
| country's needs. Sure, some of the money goes to small
| privately owned plants, but the most goes to large state-owned
| plants, who are (ideally) using the money to upgrade their
| equipment and the rest goes to government as dividends, which
| will probably be spent to support heating expenses in winter..
| anticristi wrote:
| I was starting to wonder the same. Are prices essentially
| going up, filling state coffers, so that politicians can
| promise subsidies to voters? What a weird way to make cash
| flow.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you could make electricity for 0.1EUR/MWh, you're going to
| get quite rich anyway. (That cannot be the right cost.)
| bitL wrote:
| IIRC they are mostly using nuclear power plants, i.e. from
| cheap Russian fuel rods stockpiles.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The estimate of western nuclear generation is around 330x
| the cited figure.
|
| https://www.nei.org/news/2018/cost-of-nuclear-generation-
| rea...
| himinlomax wrote:
| Fuel is an insignificant part of the cost of nuclear.
| bitL wrote:
| Even for nuclear power plants built 40 years ago and
| already fully paid for/amortized?
| epolanski wrote:
| Yes, operational costs are still the huge factor.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| That's how a market works. You say "Czechs" but it's Czech
| producers and Czech consumers (respectively) making those
| transactions. Where the market is situated is irrelevant.
|
| If you're making electricity that cheaply right now you are
| indeed getting rich, and so you should.
|
| The market is what is doing something about it. Prices will
| moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and
| as consumers reduce their usage due to high prices.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are
| pushed out and as consumers reduce their usage due to high
| prices.
|
| Electricity isn't optional. "The market" didn't make water,
| or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc,
| cheaper once privatized. In fact, it didn't make _energy_
| cheaper in the countries that privatized it.
| beebeepka wrote:
| "You just don't understand the market."
|
| Any sufficiently big scam can waived away with "the market
| has spoken". It's like a religious belief
| gruez wrote:
| >Electricity isn't optional
|
| food isn't optional either. How well did nationalized food
| production work out?
|
| >"The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or
| healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized.
|
| I can get the source for each of those claims? Some of them
| seem dubious, eg. housing. Was housing ever not privatized?
|
| >In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries
| that privatized it.
|
| well if we're talking about "energy" in general (ie. not
| just electricity), I can point out a counter-example of
| PDVSA going to shit after it was nationalized.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Many successful governments subsidize food production and
| delivery in many, many ways. Your talking points are
| tired and debated to death; mostly by people who don't
| actually have much interest in learning anything and
| would rather invent straw-men to pwn.
|
| If you really want to challenge your view, I'm sure you
| can read a book that lays it out better than I could in a
| quick YC comment.
|
| For example, here's Chomsky's take:
|
| "Privatization does not mean you take a public
| institution and give it to some nice person. It means you
| take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable
| tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For
| one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not
| out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because
| of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel
| industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to
| other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public
| institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that
| means that they can maintain employment in periods of
| recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get
| out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a
| recession. Throw out the work force because that's the
| way you make money."
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| You talk of OP's tired points - which I agree with - then
| cite Chomsky... can both "stupid extreme capitalism" and
| "stupid surrender leftism" be put to rest finally.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I have no idea what "surrender leftism" is supposed to
| mean, in relation to Noam or otherwise.
|
| However, if we'd paid a little more attention to Noam's
| points about war (clandestine and overt, economic and
| military) and the media a few decades ago, we the people
| would be tens of trillions of dollars better off.
|
| Millions of brown skinned folk would still be alive, tens
| of millions wouldn't have had to become refugees, and
| South America would be immeasurably better off.
|
| If you have some kind of beef with Chomsky I suggest you
| take it up with him; I hear he's quite good at responding
| to people.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| You missed the step where the public institution gets
| broken up into many smaller private competitors who are
| then incentivized to provide better/cheaper service to
| gain marketshare. The Soviet Union missed that step too
| when it collapsed. Monopolies are trouble whether private
| or public. Unfortunately, energy markets have a tendency
| to be dominated by local monopolies of both the public
| and private variety.
| bsaul wrote:
| Rules for this market are a lot more complex than a
| straightforward producer / consumer one though. That give a
| lot of room for biased / non-optimal behaviors
|
| For example, only gaz-based electricity producers << needs >>
| to be paid such a high price. Nuclear or renewable would be
| perfectly fine with much lower price.
|
| Or, if we had not one market, but one market per type of
| energy used to produce electricity, we would also have a <<
| market driven >> pricing, however the end-result would likely
| be much much different.
| toast0 wrote:
| There's one market for grid delivered electricity because
| within the grid, electricity is mostly fungible. There's
| details of course, but if I need X kW @ 240VAC to run my
| house, business, or factory, my equipment doesn't care if
| it's from wind, solar, nuclear, or lemon batteries, as long
| as it's within the specifications, well synchronized and
| continuous.
|
| There's some amount of market preference for different
| generation types, but that's a small portion of the load,
| so it's handled outside of the grid operation marketplace.
| It's also true that grids with limited interconnection have
| separate markets.
|
| You could run a grid on a cost plus basis, but you lose the
| benefits of market economics as well as the negatives.
| [deleted]
| stuchl4n3k wrote:
| It's only partly true and the difference is not that extreme.
| The reason for this is simple: (to my knowledge) in EU
| electricity is traded via central stock in Germany. See e.g.
| this debunk article https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-
| domov/overovna-energie-elektr... (Czech national radio / in
| Czech)
| pveierland wrote:
| Current spot price in northern Norway is EUR10.16/MWh, while it
| is EUR745.08/MWh in southern Norway (73x the price), largely due
| to limitations in transport networks between the electricity
| zones. The price in the northern zone is so low that some hydro
| plants have stopped producing electricity as they would be losing
| money at the current price level.
|
| https://www.skandiaenergi.no/dagens-spotpriser/
|
| Electricity Maps has an excellent visualization showing
| breakdowns of each electricity zone, with imports/export to each
| neighbor zone etc:
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/
| pojzon wrote:
| Ive tried to explain this issue to EVs fanatics, but nobody
| listens.
|
| Anytime you mention energy transmision issues - you get total
| backlash.
|
| We wasted EU money on pointless stuff while we could have
| upgraded our transit cables etc.
| kitbrennan wrote:
| Neither investment in EVs and repairing transmission issues
| live in isolation and both can be invested in at the same
| time. Solving one issue might also help solve the other (e.g.
| charging EVs can occur at non-peak times which balances
| energy demands, and in future EVs could be used as batteries
| to discharge into the grid during peak times).
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Germany's obsession with solar and wind is absolutely
| baffling. It takes very little to know that Germany simply
| does not have the conditions for large scale solar.
|
| Yet it was pushed so heavily in lieu of nuclear power.
| Absurd.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| In an ideal world countries like Spain and Greece invest in
| solar but they're completely incompetent. So you get the
| absurd situation that the Netherlands is European leader in
| solar energy lol. Most densely populated country in Europe
| has solar parks for fuck sake.
| kyriakos wrote:
| I live in Cyprus which experiences sunshine almost 365
| days a year and has an isolated power grid from the rest
| of the world. We also suffer from the incompetency of
| Greece and Spain but I believe solar parks are not the
| solution. Building solar parks is a waste of land which
| could be used for other purposes (agriculture for
| example). A much better solution is to ensure every
| single building has solar panels on its roof. Until
| recently there was no incentive or motivation for this
| but during the past 6 months with increasing electricity
| costs there has been a shift to PV to the point that cost
| of setup has almost doubled but people are still
| installing them. We're heading in the right direction but
| it will take years for energy independence.
| victornomad wrote:
| Spain has the 3rd installed capacity of solar power in
| Europe[1] and 2nd position in wind power[2]. It could be
| much better but also much worse :)
|
| The previous government in Spain halted lots of funding
| for new power plants but as far as I know there is a lots
| of projects going on now. I expect to see a significant
| increment in the next years.
|
| Also, in the Netherlands most of solar is installed in
| roofs, while in Spain is almost anecdotal. The previous
| government made difficult for individuals to install
| solar at home. Now that's gone but there is no subsidies,
| so individuals have to pay most of the installation from
| their own pockets, which are much more shallow than the
| dutch.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_Euro
| pean_Un... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_i
| n_the_European_Uni...
| v4dok wrote:
| Your comment is flame. You really don't believe that
| competence is the only reason solar/wind didn't scale up
| right? If you remember, those countries were/are almost
| bunkrupt, since 2010 or so. Where would these massive
| investments come from? I mean the north didn't even want
| to move away from Russia, certainly they wouldn't care
| for funding solar in Greece, Spain or Italy.
|
| The "Green new deal" however is a step in that direction.
| But IMO its theatrics. EU money to buy green German cars
| and green German infra with no plan on longevity or
| strategic change. Truth is, that if EU wanted energy
| independece, they could have it many years now. Be it
| nuclear or Mediterranean natural gas (the same gas now
| Israel is going to sell to EU).
|
| Not that the respective governments are competent. They
| are not, thats a given. But the "competent" part of
| Europe is only so in a stupidly myopic level.
| bostik wrote:
| From what I've read, in Spain there was for a long time
| (may still be?) pretty effective/expensive legislation
| _against_ installing solar panels anywhere. Reason?
| Regulatory capture, with energy companies lobbying hard
| against anything that might weaken their position or
| profiteering opportunities.
|
| I wouldn't call that necessarily incompetence. Corruption
| and cronyism, yes.
| gordaco wrote:
| Yes, for a few years we had what was popularly called
| "Sun tax" in order to disincentivise people from
| installing solar panels in their homes. It was removed in
| 2018, though.
|
| Although corruption was probably present, I would say
| that this kind of politics is precisely what we would
| expect from _pro-business_ parties (in this case, the
| People 's Party). They do have a long history of
| eschewing environmental policies as soon as any big
| company has money to lose because of them.
| iso1631 wrote:
| The EU could have invested in solar in Greece, Italy and
| Spain and Cyprus and interconnects further north, and
| likewise offshore wind in Denmark, pumped storage in
| Sweden, Austria and Greece
|
| But it failed in securing energy resilience. I hope it
| has learned its lesson.
| victornomad wrote:
| I don't think is that easy as doing it in the game city
| skylines :)
| iso1631 wrote:
| We choose to be energy independent, not because it will
| be easy, but because it will be hard
|
| HVDC interconnects are not hard. We have them already.
| Allocating land isn't hard, it's a law in the Spanish
| parliament.
|
| It just requires political will to survive. Which
| apparently isn't a thing people have.
| malepoon wrote:
| > Most densely populated country in Europe has solar
| parks for fuck sake.
|
| I don't know how much is from solar parks? About 20% of
| all houses in the Netherlands have solar panels according
| to some sources so that adds up.
| number6 wrote:
| Nuclear isn't going well for France right now. And most of
| the EU uran comes from Russia
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Yeah but nuclear fuel can be sourced from elsewhere - it
| does not have the steep physical barriers of nat gas. And
| any existing nuclear power issues can be solved.
|
| The amount of sunlight your receive, however, will always
| be the same.
| number6 wrote:
| How do you solve that the rivers are too hot to cool the
| reactors to produce more energy?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| We have built reactors in literal deserts, but the
| cooling system needs to bw different ofcourse
|
| https://min.news/en/tech/30bdf6748162428883857d361132e177
| .ht...
| voqv wrote:
| This meme has to end, there's only one nuclear power
| plant in France (Blayais) that has no cooling towers, and
| another 4 have to occasionally throttle power output due
| to ecological concerns (used water is too hot, they
| currently have temporary exceptions).
| pyrale wrote:
| The water is never too hot to cool the reactors, it's too
| hot to release back into the river, for environmental
| reasons. Evaporative cooling solves that problem, but
| then you "lose" water, which is never great in a heat
| wave.
|
| A nuclear plant using sea water never stops due to heat
| waves, because it can dilute any amount of hot water.
| makomk wrote:
| Meanwhile over here in the UK, the press is blaming the
| energy crisis partly on the fact that our government didn't
| spend loads of money on solar and onshore wind like
| Germany. We're even worse situated to benefit from solar
| than they are. (The renewable program here is mostly
| focused on offshore wind, which is the least-bad option
| given our geography, plus attempts at nuclear that are
| widely criticized by the press as wastes of money given how
| much cheaper onshore wind and solar are.)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Britain is the best position country in Europe for wind
| and tidal power.
|
| There was a project to pay down cable to import reliable,
| cheap 24/7 power from Iceland and hobernment said 'nah'.
| They also cancelled a 340 MW tidal project
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Real question: What is the largest tidal power
| installation in the world? Why do we see so little of it?
| wongarsu wrote:
| We don't see large tidal power installations because they
| are not every economical so far. In theory there's a lot
| of energy to be won, but the salt water causes corrosion
| issues, and maintenance gets expensive quickly
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| on the other hand its 100% reliable and needs no fuel,
| does notndepend on drought, etc.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I think there's a 2MW test turbine off Scotland which I
| think is the biggest in the world.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-
| she...
|
| Just not as cost effective as wind, which got to
| piggyback of onshore turbine development.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| But the UK has HVDC line to norway right?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Is wind power even worth the investment? From disposal
| issues to wind turbines killing birds and bird habitats
| to sheer unreliability, wind seems to have a ton of
| issues.
| raverbashing wrote:
| And yet, right now, solar is 20% of the electricity on the
| grid in Germany. Wind is 15% (per the electrictymaps app)
|
| Sure it would be better if it was a sunnier place, still...
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| You should see how much they've invested in solar to hit
| that mark, and how much capacity is being unutilized
| teamonkey wrote:
| Maybe _you_ could show us with a source?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| This is a good one:
|
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-
| failure-...
|
| Essentially, there's plenty of installed solar capacity
| but most of it can't be utilized fully unless its a
| perfect day. So you have to essentially rely on backup
| and keep installing more and more solar capacity beyond
| your needs because those perfect solar days are so rare
| in Germany.
|
| This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has ever spent
| even two days in Germany - the country isn't exactly
| brimming with sunlight.
| imhoguy wrote:
| And how much all that solar equipment garbage is going to
| be disposed soon.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Top utilization of solar was approximately 25% of the
| installed base today
|
| At the same time, 49% of nuclear in France is being used
| today and 62% of nuclear in the UK
|
| So, it's "bad" but not everything is used 100% all the
| time
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| The thing is, on a perfect day, Germany has enough solar
| capacity to fulfill almost all of its electricity needs.
|
| But that perfect day is rare, largely because of
| Germany's climate.
|
| So you have a situation where you have to essentially
| install over 100% of your needs in solar. You're
| overspending for suboptimum results.
| megablast wrote:
| Or you could tell us.
| atemerev wrote:
| It would be even more better if they didn't close their
| nuclear power plants. I am still shocked how sad and
| untimely this decision had been.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It wouldn't change much in this map, German nuclear
| plants always had cooling issues in hot summer. No open-
| loop cooling to prevent water from getting too hot for
| the fish, and plants capable of closed loop cooling
| eventually get issues with the river's water level.
| France has the same issues right now with their nuclear
| plants.
|
| Winter is of course a different issue
| pornel wrote:
| Backlash is probably because such argument can sound like
| "better give up on EVs and go back to ICE" rather than "let's
| invest more in the energy infrastructure".
|
| If you call people fanatics, they won't believe you're making
| a good faith argument.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| California has to shut down their grid occasionally just
| because it's in such poor repair that wildfires are a risk. I
| can't imagine how they are going to handle everyone getting
| EVs.
| gibolt wrote:
| Solar and distributed storage help fight this. A
| significant amount of charging off peak also actually
| reduces the load, making things more reliable and cleaner.
|
| Fire related grid shutdowns are usually hyperlocal, meaning
| the few who need to charge during that time can just run a
| town over. (keep in mind that EVs can be charged just less
| than once a week for average use)
| iso1631 wrote:
| EVs are literally distributed storage, a Tesla Model S
| has a 90kWh battery -- that's enough to run the owner's
| house for 3 days.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In most places electricity cables are buried. In California
| they have them blowing around in the trees so they start
| fires.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Street-level and medium-voltage distribution, sure, but
| nobody wants to bury 100+ kV lines unless they really
| have to, because it's hugely expensive and also has much
| higher losses.
| mbreese wrote:
| This isn't true. In most places I've been, electrical
| lines have all been elevated on poles. Where I currently
| live, there is a pretty intensive line clearing program
| each spring to keep the lines clear. Even in places where
| house level lines were buried, the middle transmission
| lines were still elevated.
|
| And I believe all high voltage transmission lines are
| above ground.
|
| The difference is that California historically has fire
| prone conditions. It's not like the rest of the country
| is doing something different and California has done
| something inherently wrong. It's that California did what
| the rest of the country was doing, but without conditions
| to support it.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > This isn't true.
|
| Most countries don't have regular residential streets
| with power lines up in the air.
| grandmczeb wrote:
| The fires are mostly caused by large transmission lines
| outside of urban areas, not local lines on residential
| streets.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| For example https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-
| now/2018/10/15/pg... - these are normally buried
| elsewhere.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| No, not all high voltage is above ground.
| Reason077 wrote:
| The transmission issues will be solved: more and more HVDC
| interconnections start construction in Europe every year.
| Grids that still rely heavily on coal and natural gas can,
| and will, be improved.
|
| An EV bought today will only get cleaner as the grid gets
| cleaner. A new fossil-fuel vehicle today will always be
| dependent on fossil fuels, and will always pollute at least
| as much as the day it was purchased.
| 01100011 wrote:
| This response is correct. Be sure to forward it to the
| folks in the EU this winter when they're unable to charge
| their cars or heat their homes.
|
| We should be thinking long term, but we can't forget about
| the present and the path to the glorious future. I think in
| hindsight we'll soon admit that we botched the transition
| to a greener world and caused needless suffering by putting
| ideologies before engineering.
| foxhill wrote:
| even if it ran on gasoline created from carbon dioxide
| extracted from the atmosphere?
| zionic wrote:
| That gasoline wouldn't be an energy source, it'd be an
| extremely crappy battery.
|
| Far better to just send the power via grid to an EV @95%
| then toss 60% or more of it to make a gallon of gas
| foxhill wrote:
| it's a more practical solution for right now though. we
| can't expect the world to switch its entire
| infrastructure overnight, or even quickly. yes, the rich
| nations might get a head start, but they represent such a
| small fraction of emissions.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >yes, the rich nations might get a head start, but they
| represent such a small fraction of emissions.
|
| Not really for automotive emissions. The US alone
| accounts for almost half the world's road CO2 emissions.
| foxhill wrote:
| and automotive emissions account for ~10% of all CO2
| emissions. 20% if you want to include _all_ transport
| (e.g. sea shipping, planes, etc.)
|
| there's been a lot of media attention on how individuals
| need to make an effort to beat climate change, but the
| reality is that industry is the only sector able to make
| a meaningful impact.
| marcinzm wrote:
| This thread is discussing EVs vs gasoline so not sure why
| you're changing the topic suddenly.
| foxhill wrote:
| apologies, i don't understand. you seemed to suggest cars
| are a significant contributor to CO2 emission.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Its not practical. The extra energy costs act like a high
| tax.
|
| It might make sense, for a while with aircraft, or for a
| classic car that rarely gets used, but would be too
| expensive for developing nations to use when they have
| other options. They'd save lots of money by using the
| same energy directly in newly built (or converted) EVs.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Exactly or simply biogas/biomethane as fuel.
| adrianN wrote:
| We don't have perfectly impact-free ways of creating
| energy. So using less energy to achieve the same goal is
| always better. And carbon dioxide is not the only
| pollutant that cars emit.
| martinko wrote:
| we dont have any way of 'creating' energy
| ben_w wrote:
| Technically correct but missing the point.
| Conventionally, burning things, PV, wind, etc. are all
| classified as "creating energy" even if it makes
| thermodynamics pedants unhappy.
| peteradio wrote:
| How many neighbors on a block of houses can have
| simultaneous charging?
| iso1631 wrote:
| There's 10 houses on my street, if every house had 2 cars
| and each drove 50 miles a day at 3 miles per kWh, and the
| cars are parked 10 hours overnight, that's 3kW per house
|
| As we can all boil a kettle (3kW), or have a shower
| (10kW), or cook a sunday roast (5kW), and indeed do those
| at the same time, it's not a problem.
| adrianN wrote:
| All of them? The typical car is moved less than 100km per
| day and is parked upwards of twenty hours a day. With a
| kilowatt or two you car charge the car.
| zionic wrote:
| I'm just exhausted from arguing with the electrically
| illiterate.
|
| HVDC makes transmission from state to state trivial at almost
| no loss. We should have a national HVDC grid so that a breeze
| in Texas might power a toaster in Connecticut.
|
| Instead we have another $XX Billion for Ukraine. Another $13B
| here for a new carrier we'll never need etc etc. So much
| waste everywhere while fundamental problems go unsolved.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Literally the whole West's defense spending for the last 70
| years has been to counter Russia. Supporting Ukraine is the
| single most cost-effective thing any Western government can
| do right now...
| trasz wrote:
| If you don't help Ukraine, the reborn Soviet Union would
| become a valuable asset to China. You probably don't want
| to happen.
| atemerev wrote:
| The fall of Ukraine will mean the beginning of the new
| Soviet Union (but even _more_ evil), and most probably a
| world war, so it should be prevented at all costs possible.
| Not event to mention that the invasion is plainly evil, and
| should be repealed.
| PeterisP wrote:
| It's not a matter of cost, there's no political desire for
| a national HVDC grid so that a breeze in Texas might power
| a toaster in Connecticut - Texas has explicitly refused
| connecting to the rest of the country for many years.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Cost is a bit of a problem: each HVDC edge costs a lot,
| hence why it's used almost entirely for long distance
| point to point links.
|
| Maybe that will come down over time?
| rypskar wrote:
| Limitations in transport capacity is only one part of it, a
| large part is that the northern zone have had rain most of the
| summer, much more than usual, while the south have had a dry
| summer. We did basically get all the rain the rest of Europe
| have been missing this summer
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| All energy problem reduce to problems of energy transportation.
| We have a huge fusion reactor in the sky. The challenge is
| capture and transit. The problem is not incidental; it's
| fundamental.
| jotm wrote:
| As long as people won't even try to install a solar
| concentrator while bitching about rising prices, I won't take
| any of them seriously.
|
| Such a simple design, can be used for at least heating water
| for 3-6 months. But nah.
|
| Same for which the roofs. You don't have a white/silver roof
| on your house? Fuck you.
|
| On that note, you like cruise ships? Also fuck you.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "You don't have a white/silver roof on your house? Fuck
| you."
|
| I am one of your fuckees. The house I bought was expensive
| enough as it was. I am not changing a brand new dark roof
| for a different one for an exorbitant price right now,
| because budget. A perfectly new roof going down (isn't that
| actually waste?) for saving, say, 10 of 30 days when the AC
| is really needed?
|
| (I am also not even sure if roof colors are regulated by
| the local authorities or not. There are over thirty houses
| in the same project, with the same roofs. Maybe I wouldn't
| even be allowed to.)
| jotm wrote:
| Then it's not your fault.
|
| I'm talking people building or renovating and then
| bitching about expensive AC. Talk about idiotic.
|
| I'm in a town where more than half the roofs are black.
| BLACK! It has been over 30 degrees and sunny for two
| months of summer. Guess what complaints I kept hearing?
|
| Reflective paint helps in summer much more than it hurts
| in winter.
|
| But beyond that, I just hate people going "Reeee we need
| to do something about the climate change" who do
| absolutely nothing themselves.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| dark roof helps on cold days right?
| boulos wrote:
| You don't have to replace the roof. You can coat it in a
| white, "elastomeric" paint like [1]. Each bucket can do
| about 450 sq ft (40 sq m) and is ~$100 for the supplies.
|
| In California, roof _color_ isn 't regulated, but
| reflectivity (or rather energy absorption) is by Title
| 24. You're basically required on new construction to have
| a fairly efficient roof.
|
| [1] https://www.homedepot.com/p/Henry-4-75-Gal-Acrylic-
| Reflectiv...
| megablast wrote:
| Exactly, why should you replace your roof to save the
| planet?? Screw the planet.
| kkfx wrote:
| I have a new all-electric home and a p.v. system with
| lithium storage, ALSO living in a sunny place (French Alps
| of the south, in altitude) I'm FAR from being autonomous.
| But really far.
|
| If I want to go fully autonomous I have to spend in
| batteries like the same price of a Lamborghini, for zero
| re-sale value, to be demolished in 10 years in theory, in
| practice more likely 7-8 years if I use them with
| significant daily important DOD. I also doubt we are even
| able to produce enough battery and panels to everyone. And
| I'm not alone: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/dir
| ections_services... essentially the governmental, non-
| interested report state: we can't run on renewable. That's
| is.
|
| What I'm curious is another thing: why some on a
| technically sound community like HN with certain topics
| became totally partisan of this or that topic at fanatic
| levels. It's not you, it's a trend I see in the last months
| at least, for various topics: anytime there is a post with
| a neoliberal agenda hot topic such behaviors appear.
|
| My honest review:
|
| - I spent a very big amount of money to build a new home,
| witch will not pay back ever in monetary terms, only pay
| back in comfort terms;
|
| - I spent more for renewables NOT because they are
| ecological (they are pollutant) but as a protection against
| future disruption I imaging we will suffer, again in
| economical terms money dumped to the bin;
|
| - I'll spend more in the near future for an BEV because I
| expect diesel/gasoline supply issues and artificially
| skyrocketed prices.
|
| The synthesis? Well: those who have done such investments
| will be far less wealthy then before. Those who have not
| done that or can't will be far poorer. Those who gain are
| ONLY those who push such evolution for almost pure
| financial reasons, not "green" at all in ecological terms,
| green just in dollar and stereotypical toxic waist terms.
| Since it's clearly NOT sustainable nor extendable on scale
| the obvious results will be a very big disaster and another
| global war.
| stepbeek wrote:
| > Same for which the roofs. You don't have a white/silver
| roof on your house? Fuck you.
|
| Why?
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I think they reflect the sun and keep the house cool
| without a lot of extra energy for air conditioning.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I don't need air conditioning, the 3 or 4 days a year it
| gets hot enough that it's a problem I close the blinds on
| the front and open the window.
|
| I do need heating in the winter though.
| icehawk wrote:
| We were having a new roof put on house as a part of buying
| one, and while we wanted white shingles, the only option
| available was brown.
|
| Circumstances might not be as simple as you you think they
| are.
| mrshadowgoose wrote:
| "A person who doesn't live exactly according to my values.
| Fuck that person!"
| google234123 wrote:
| A huge fusion reactor in the sky that isn't available in the
| evening or when it's cloudy.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The sun is always shining somewhere. We need more
| interconnects.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| The electricity never goes out on the British Empire! /s
| andrepd wrote:
| Global power transfers don't work due to losses. The
| physics doesn't work out.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Tell that to the proposed EuroAsia link (Greece-Cyprus-
| Israel) [1], or the proposed Australia-Singapore link
| [2]. Interconnector are getting longer and longer with
| each new generation.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroAsia_Interconnector
|
| [2] https://www.powerengineeringint.com/smart-grid-td/td-
| infrast...
|
| The electrical loss through HVDC cable is approximately
| 3% per 1000 km of cable, far less than with AC grids. The
| physics do work out, the only real barriers are economics
| and politics.
| candiodari wrote:
| Exactly, just like always before: only interconnects
| through oceans work because otherwise one government is
| entrusting its fate to another. In the best case that
| ends with countries paying tax to other countries'
| governments, in the worst case that ends in war.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Or it ends with a third government cutting the cable and
| massively disrupting the other two
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| A 3000 km HVDC interconnect loses only 10%. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
|
| The physics works out just fine. Where did you get your
| information from?
|
| See also:
|
| "On the technology front we have covered significant
| ground in the past two decades. We have raised power
| capacity from 50MW to more than 1,400MW aEUR" enough to
| power several million households. We have enhanced
| voltage levels from 80kV to 525kV, thereby increasing
| distance capability from 70km to over 1,000km. And at the
| same time we have continually brought down transmission
| losses which are now at less than 1 percent."
| https://eepower.com/news/abb-doubles-hvdc-capacity-and-
| celeb...
| worldwideants wrote:
| Can I return this Tesla resonator or at least exchange it
| for the powerwall?
| boshomi wrote:
| HVDC enables long-distance transmission with low losses:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331959599_A_comp
| reh...
|
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/building-
| a-2... (2 billion seems too cheep)
| ben_w wrote:
| Global power transfer (~2e7 meters) with current standard
| HVDC cables would lose 64%, which is still worth doing.
|
| The cables are designed for crossing relatively small
| bodies of water such as the Mediterranean or the North
| Sea, and can be tweaked for more efficiency if the goal
| is to cross the Pacific Ocean, but even without that, it
| would still work.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Where is the space mirror?
| hardlianotion wrote:
| You mean the orbital death ray?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Well I was simply trying to light up the other side of
| the planet, but if you want to concentrate it to a small
| area..
| toast0 wrote:
| When it's shining on the Pacific, there's not a lot of
| landmass.
|
| The rest of the day works though.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Floating PV? https://www.pveurope.eu/solar-
| modules/singapore-offshore-flo...
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Remember that "transport" includes "to storage", which in
| turn includes some of the most efficient batteries in the
| form of connected reservoirs located at different heights
| so that gravity does the discharging work.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Also remember that there is a limited supply of single-
| use, liquid battery that was pre-charged long ago, but
| unfortunately it's exhaust is hopelessly harmful.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Since, as of today, electriciry cannot be stored, but is
| consumed the moment it is generated, we have all those
| problems. Base and peak load, PV and wind being less (not
| completely unusable as real life data shows) in line with
| eletricity consumption... The list goes on. And that fact
| is part of the reason why prices are going haywire.
|
| Electricity isn't stored, it is consumed.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| All energy on earth, baring geothermal, is ultimately solar
| energy. Fossil fuels are just one, very efficient, form of
| storing that energy.
| ben_w wrote:
| Also nuclear and most but not all tidal.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| _All energy problem reduce to problems of energy
| transportation_
|
| Don't make us tap the sign.
| looperhacks wrote:
| Does this matter if we could transport electricity from
| somewhere not cloudy or evening ... -y?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Hmm, either trans-Atlantic or a country governments
| blocked from global markets... Yeah, there might be some
| issues with that solution.
| [deleted]
| bambax wrote:
| It's always available _somewhere_ , so it is, in fact, a
| transport problem.
| teddyh wrote:
| That's just a different problem we can't solve, either.
| ben_w wrote:
| Multiple solutions are already known, some better some
| worse. It's politics and economics that's in the way, and
| even then the world is changing.
| kkfx wrote:
| I'm honestly curious about a thing, that might sound not
| so in-topic, but that is, actually: HN is supposed to be
| a technically sound community, however when someone post
| about some trendy neoliberals-related topics a certain
| part of the community instead of remain technical start
| to be partisan, sometimes at fanatic levels.
|
| The in-topic part is for instance about p.v.: if you
| think a global electricity grid as a solution you dream
| something that seems to be logic, if you are a manager
| but is a totally crazy idea because we are not AT ALL a
| global community. Even if some neoliberals call
| themselves World Government [1] the reality is that we
| are various States with different interests and NOTHING
| at a certain scale can work simply because of that, any
| other thing aside.
|
| Not only: the idea that we have the production capacity,
| substitution included, to build and run such monster is
| another dream, with the same realism of those who say
| "hey, I produce 130% of my consumption from p.v.". It's
| an old classic of those who "try and fix on the go", who
| typically create hyper-big disasters and survive thanks
| to those who do not work as them. If the entire world
| take this path such a big fail will not be solved by
| anyone.
|
| [1] https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/
| ben_w wrote:
| This is why, although I prefer a global power grid, I
| suspect storage is going to be the main solution to
| energy being wanted in a different time or place than it
| is generated.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Multiple solutions are already known_
|
| Care to link to some?
| ben_w wrote:
| c. 1820s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_conductor
|
| c. 1869:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water
|
| 1897: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
|
| Antiquity or 1835: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror
|
| 1882: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| voltage_direct_current
| teddyh wrote:
| Are you telling me that Sweden, a country of 10 million
| people, which has wildly differing electricity prices
| within that same small country1, could simply use _copper
| conductors_ to solve this problem, but chooses not to for
| _political reasons_?
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32618798
| ben_w wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Might not even be wrong to have made this choice, I can't
| tell -- economics (which is an important part of
| politics) is outside my domain.
| lenkite wrote:
| Just need to wait for Putin to conquer the world and
| build Putin Pipes.
| kkfx wrote:
| Did you really think that the actual crisis is due to a
| single man choice?
|
| Try a small game, put PR and the emotion they push aside:
| who need a war today? If you are honest you have to admit
| that the most in need of a war are UK first, USA second.
| UK need a war outside to avoid a civil war inside. Having
| essentially lost their "empire" status they are simply
| unable to live anymore. A war would compact people and if
| won give resource of the looser. USA need a war for
| similar reasons, mitigated by the fact that USA can
| actually live on it's own, even alone, "only" correcting
| it's crazy economy. Not easy at all, but technically
| possible, so practically when crisis really bite.
|
| China do not need, but like, a war. They have a hyper big
| food issue, they need to conquer south America to eat. To
| do so they need to overpower the USA. To do so they need
| Russia's tech and natural resources, something Russia, a
| China's historic enemy, do not like that much to share to
| such a big & powerful giant.
|
| Russia do not like a war at all. It's something that
| impose agreements with China, imbalanced. EU similarly do
| not need a war. It simply destroy EU itself due to the
| lack of natural resources.
|
| So the plan is? Well. USA declare it essentially in the
| far 2004: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Tr
| ends_Mapping%... oh, they are formally just acritical
| prediction from the intelligence to the politicians. But
| sounds really accurate. In more modern terms: https://www
| .rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/R...
|
| A bottomline: saying that UK and USA need a war means
| their oppressive ruling classes need it, of course NOT
| the people, unfortunately as most people in the world
| those who do need the opposite of their ruling class are
| the last to understand they are fighting for their own
| enemy that's not those on the opposite front, but those
| who march at their head.
| StingyJelly wrote:
| UK lost their "empire" status in early 20th century and
| seems to be able to live without it. USA is oleophillic
| in nature but definitely does not need war. So does
| nobody else.
|
| Russia may not like a war but Russia needs resources
| since it wants to be the only store in neighborhood, and
| unfortunately, Ukraine does have resources. War was not
| expected outcome of the initial scare tactic but here we
| are.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| This is why the real magic of fossil fuels isn't the energy
| they contain, but their energy density.
|
| An efficient, large scale global economy is only possible
| with incredibly high energy density (and easy to transport
| and convert into usage energy) energy sources.
|
| And, to your point, even global food supply is ultimately an
| issue of transporting energy from the sun to human bodies
| largely in the form of plant based carbohydrates. Human's
| ability to expand around the globe is predicated on the
| ability to transport the caloric requirements efficiently.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Solar resource isn't equally distributed, particularly Europe
| has poor potential: https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
|
| Solar energy isn't the panacea that people make it out to be.
| Where it is abundant, it makes sense. A lot of places do not
| have that luxury, yet countries like Germany made foolish
| investments in solar power which is 10% efficient compared to
| its full potential in Southwestern USA.
| hhjinks wrote:
| The sun is responsible for a lot more of our energy than
| just solar. Photosynthesis, wind, solar (of course), hydro,
| are all energy sources that directly capture energy from
| the sun, which we then use. Like the parent poster said,
| it's about transportation. Sometimes nature does that
| transportation for us.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Absolutely, Sun is also responsible for oil and natural
| gas if you stretch the horizon longer. Perhaps the only
| source of energy we have not capture from the Sun is
| nuclear, which may have been a result of supernova
| explosions. This pedantry aside, Germany needs better
| energy policy that is grounded in fundamental resource
| economics, not driven by ideology/potitical will, but
| with a stern look at their national energy security (or
| lack there of) and secure it by the means that's
| necessary.
|
| Cost of energy has multitude of secondary effects on GDP
| and food security; the importance of which cannot be
| understated.
| JW_00000 wrote:
| Is an investment foolish if it has a positive ROI? I live
| in Belgium, and even without subsidies and before the
| current increases in electricity prices, solar panels had a
| payback period of ~ 10 years (while they generally last ~
| 25 years). Why would it be foolish to invest in this?
|
| You say that they would be 10x as efficient in Southwestern
| USA. But how would you transport the electricity from the
| USA to Germany? Isn't that exactly the problem that the
| previous commenter is pointing out? I.e. production is not
| the problem, transportation is.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| It's an opportunity cost, particularly in Germany against
| other RET investments such as nuclear/wind: https://www.s
| ciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...
| pelasaco wrote:
| last time that i checked, I couldn't find any nuclear
| reactor to my home. I have however 8kwh solar panel on my
| roof and I'm quite happy with that.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| That sounds cool. Hope you live in a sunny place.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| > The problem is not incidental; it's fundamental.
|
| WTF does that mean?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I assume it's borrowing language from incidental vs
| fundamental complexity in programming.
|
| Fundamental is core to the problem, incidental is stuff we
| add because of our imperfect solutions.
| tsm wrote:
| I would've said "it's an inherent problem, not just bad
| luck this time".
| Smithalicious wrote:
| It's not an (isolated) incident, it's fundamental (part of
| the foundation, a core part of) to energy management. What
| that means is that the issue is expected; it's always been
| an issue when dealing with energy and always will be.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Have people considered battery trucks? I don't mean battery-
| powered trucks, but trucks full of batteries. It seems kind
| of silly when you can use hydrogen or natural gas in your
| trucks instead, but battery trucks may be the lowest-loss
| form of long-distance electricity transport.
| nixass wrote:
| Why not then just charge batteries where you need them and
| keep them at place for when the Sun goes to sleep? Why
| would you transport batteries around?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Because some places have excess amounts of hydropower and
| other places have huge energy shortfalls. Not everyone is
| using solar/wind power. It is a pretty straightforward
| arbitrage. I have no idea if it's worth doing, though.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| It's pretty obvious that it isn't at least not with
| lithium batteries. They are way to expensive and heavy.
| e.g. assuming an around 36 000 kg total payload the truck
| would have to use up 1/3 of all the electricity it stores
| just to travel around 600km. This combined with general
| inefficiency of batteries and the extreme cost would make
| it an absolutely terrible alternative to HVDC.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Some Battery train companies include this in their plans.
|
| Even non Battery electric trains can speed up or slow
| down at different points (while still staying on
| schedule) to act as a variable demand for the local
| grids. Batteries just extend that.
|
| https://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/science/2021/11/can-
| we-ru...
|
| > The analysis becomes very interesting when the
| researchers leave freight behind and start thinking about
| what could be done with many big, mobile batteries. Even
| without moving them, freight companies could use their
| capacity to provide grid stabilization services or sell
| back power when the price gets high. In extreme cases,
| this system could actually pay for the entire
| infrastructure.
|
| > "Preliminary estimates of the most expensive 90 hours
| per year in the ERCOT [Texas] market, for example, show
| that batteries could be discharged at $200/kWh,
| potentially generating enough revenue to pay for the
| upfront battery cost in a single year," the study says.
|
| > The batteries could also be moved to locations that
| have been struck by power outages or natural disasters,
| towed there by locomotives running on diesel instead of
| draining the batteries.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Even non Battery electric trains can speed up or slow
| down at different points
|
| I want this for everything with a battery, it's own
| internal thermal mass or things I don't need to complete
| as quickly as possible.
|
| E.g.: laptop, washing machine (clothes or dishes), dryer,
| refrigerator, hot water heater, hvac, etc.
|
| It just seems so underdeveloped on the consumer side.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Hot water heaters are the the low hanging fruit here.
| Australian water heaters have been using overnight coal
| power for decades with very basic systems.
|
| https://es.catapult.org.uk/project/consumer-insight-
| unlockin...
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| No, they're not.
| xvedejas wrote:
| Without thinking too hard about the efficiency, it's
| clearly just not a _safe_ proposition with our current best
| (most energy-dense per weight) batteries.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Gasoline has much more energy density per weight than
| batteries, and we truck that around all the time.
| xvedejas wrote:
| Gasoline isn't self-oxidizing, so you can put out a
| gasoline fire (instead of just "letting it burn"). Also
| gasoline doesn't burn at 2000C, I believe.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Right. That's one reasons why transporting electricity by
| truck is a terrible idea.
| 323 wrote:
| There are regular train/truck transports with much more
| dangerous and volatile chemicals than lithium.
| eptcyka wrote:
| The current dangerous transports are not nearly as widely
| deployed as battery trucks would be required to be to be
| viable.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Batteries are heavy. The heavier you are, the more power
| you need to move. This is why almost all battery based
| truck designs are very short range.
| stark98 wrote:
| Are there any plans to build an infrastructure to connect both
| networks? It seems like a great idea in the current situation
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Would be cheaper to build wind power.
|
| The reason the southern areas have high prices is because
| they are connected to other markets.
|
| Connect the northern stuff better and it'll equalise the
| price but not substantially. High cost low gain compared with
| cheap new wind generation.
| Hanschri wrote:
| A political issue with this is that Northern Norway has been
| exempt from the 25% VAT as one of many measures to make
| living in Northern Norway more attractive. Until now the cost
| of power in both north and south has been pretty much the
| same, meaning people in power zone NO4 have paid about the
| same price for power, but not the VAT.
|
| But now that the price has gone up by such an enormous amount
| in the south, connecting north and south will not reduce the
| price in the other zones, it will likely just cause NO4 to go
| up to the same level as in the rest of Norway. This is mainly
| due to the NO4 being basically not connected to the the
| synchronous grid of Continental Europe, while the other
| regions are to a much larger extent due to underwater cables
| going to the UK, Denmark and Germany. This means that the
| price of power in Europe directly influences the price of
| electricity in NO1-3, but not NO4. At least not to the same
| extent, although Sweden makes a killing buying cheap power
| from NO4 and selling it to mainland Europe, or even straight
| back to southern Norway. As such, connecting NO4 to the rest
| of Norway and by extention the European grid, would not be
| very popular in the north, but to be fair, the price increase
| has not exactly been popular in the south either.
|
| The industry in Norway is highly electrified and some sectors
| are very energy intensive, such as aluminium production,
| which due to using electrolysis, runs almost entirely off the
| grid. Manufacturing used almost 37% of all power consumed in
| Norway in 2017, with power-intensive manufacturing accounting
| for over 80% of total energy use in the manufacturing sector
| that year.[0] This is also an issue which will need to be
| considered when talking about increasing transfer capacity
| between the two zones.
|
| I hope this gives some insight, even if I rambled a bit and
| touched on a lot of different aspects. I'm by no means an
| expert, but have become interested in the subject as so many
| other Norwegians have lately. I'd love to answer more
| questions if you have any!
|
| [0] https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-
| energibruk/energibruken... (Source in English and published
| by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Already exists. The main limitation is the number of cables
| and GW capacity.Also ramping up cable production has a bit of
| latency and installing them even more. And it's capital
| intensive and only makes sense when electricity prices are
| high. They are right now but that's not a permanent
| situation.
| bombcar wrote:
| And the problem with building massive interconnects that
| are rarely used is that it's not economical to do so. They
| need to be encouraged by outside means.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Ok, fun ideas for what to do with a megawatt hour for $10?
| (that aren't mining crypto)
| colechristensen wrote:
| I'll start:
|
| Load up a truck with several tons of batteries, charge them,
| and ship the electricity south.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Not really worth it.
|
| A ballpark calculation - ignoring any infrastructure and
| time for charging/offloading, assuming you get the
| batteries and the electricity for free, using Tesla
| batteries as an example, a MWh of them would weigh more
| than 6 tons; so freight truck can carry at most 2-3 MWh
| worth of batteries (density is likely to be an issue) and
| the sale price of that truck full of electricity even at
| the current outrageous prices is just 1000 eur, perhaps
| 2000 if you drive all the way across Europe. Shipping cargo
| on such trucks costs something like 1.5 eur/km nowadays (we
| don't have cheap self-driving electric trucks yet..) so if
| you'd have to drive more than a few hundred km (and you
| have to drive the batteries back!), you'd be better off
| using these trucks to ship something else than electricity.
| njsteinsund wrote:
| At this 6km/20 mins long ferry crossing the electric
| ferry containing 1MWh of batteries can charge at
| EUR10/MWh on the north side of the fjord, with the price
| on the south side at approximately EUR500/MWh...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ampere
| PeterisP wrote:
| A 6km high voltage transmission line will be much more
| effective still.
| qzw wrote:
| And do what when you get there? Sell them by the roadside
| like fresh vegetables? A few tons of batteries' worth of
| electricity is hardly worth a utility company's time.
| intothemild wrote:
| As someone in Oslo... This makes me super jealous.
| capableweb wrote:
| Would be great if the list on the right was sorted not by country
| name but by the price instead, together with a number on the left
| side for "rank".
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _UK energy bills are soaring to record highs_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32617621 - Aug 2022 (164
| comments)
| baggiponte wrote:
| Source?
| Lex-2008 wrote:
| as sibling comment says, some numbers match those shown on
| https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/maps/#/nordic
| luovatek wrote:
| At least the scandinavian prices are from Nordpool. And they
| are only 24h averages while the real price of course varies
| every hour. I merely checked the price for Finland and it was
| correct.
| simplecto wrote:
| by that measure Swedish datacenters should be oversubscribed
| halper wrote:
| That data centres in Sweden pay almost no electricity tax (5
| SEK/MWh if I remember correctly) while consumers pay 36 is not
| popular with everyone. The map doesn't show that Sweden is
| divided into four areas. SE1 and SE2, the northernmost two and
| where some data centres are, have prices that most days are in
| the single-SEK/MWh range while in SE3 the prices might be tens
| of times higher. SE4, the southernmost area, has even higher
| prices due to the fact that (1) power is exported to markets
| where it is even more expensive and (2) because plants have
| closed down. The transmission capacity between SE3 and SE4
| tends to be maxed out (as evidenced by the fact that prices
| differ).
|
| AWS is in SE3, where the electricity is tens to a hundred times
| more expensive than for Facebook in SE1.
| moogly wrote:
| And don't forget that's 36 SEK/MWh minus VAT, so in reality
| it's 45, and businesses don't pay the VAT of course.
| Cantinflas wrote:
| AFAIK Spain prices are not "real" in the sense that gas prices
| have been "capped" and electricity users have to pay generation
| companies that use gas a variable fee to compensate that cap.
| Real end-user price is likely double
| locallost wrote:
| What I understood is that Spain capped gas prices, thus
| reducing electricity prices. But yes, it's not real.
| seydor wrote:
| This is what every country should do. Basically putin is
| extorting europe through its marginal pricing.
|
| BTW spain's prices are more "real" in the sense that they
| better reflect the cost of generation. It's the EU market's
| prices that are fake.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| In Croatian electricity prices have only gone up 15% this year
| because of government intervention. The actual costs are
| something like 10x.
| sofixa wrote:
| Same in France, electricity prices are capped so hard EDF had
| to be renationalised due to their massive losses to maintain
| the cap.
| samuel wrote:
| THIS.
|
| The compensation adds 243.57eur/MWh to the final price for
| Spain.
|
| https://www.omie.es/es/market-results/daily/average-final-pr...
| seydor wrote:
| but note that 380 EUR is still much much cheaper than other
| countries
| bob1029 wrote:
| I'm starting to have flashbacks to Griddy and the $9,000/MWh
| wholesale pricing I had to dance around in Feb 2021. The novelty
| of accounting for small appliance usage in dollars per hour wore
| off pretty quickly for me.
|
| I was able to get my sustained electricity consumption under
| ~800w (including central furnace blower) after some extreme
| compromises. Only had to pay about a thousand dollars for that
| incident. I know of people on Griddy who had 5 figure bills that
| month.
|
| In retrospect, I think variable rates are the ultimate solution
| to these problems. I am not usually very price sensitive, but
| $9/KWh is a monster rate if you aren't paying attention. I was
| forced to adjust my behavior to accommodate the available supply.
|
| For better or worse, we still can't store electricity at scale in
| most markets, so forcing the consumer behavior may be the next
| best option.
| robmsmt wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what you reduced and what was remaining
| for the 800w? I am curious
| vadym909 wrote:
| Are these prices consumers pay? Or does the gov absorb it? Way to
| cool off the ev excitement
| arbuge wrote:
| It varies by country. For example, in Malta the government is
| currently absorbing it:
|
| https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/greens-want-fuel-subs...
|
| "Electricity tariffs and fuel prices have remained frozen in
| Malta despite skyrocketing international prices, with the
| government spending hundreds of million to cover the difference
| and keep local prices stable.
|
| Times of Malta reported on Friday that maintaining the subsidy
| in place next year is likely to cost taxpayers EUR400 million."
|
| OTOH in the UK:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/uk-energy-bills-to-rise-by-8...
| bjourne wrote:
| Remember that, while prices have soared, electricity _generation_
| has not become more expensive. The "electricity crisis" is a
| crisis for European consumers but a massive windfall for
| producers. This is a market failure - not an electricity failure.
| sph wrote:
| Can anybody explain why that is? Why a country that generates
| 99+% of its own electricity like UK is seeing price increases?
|
| Everybody blames the war, but AFAIK UK imports 1% of its gas
| from Russia, and its electricity is generated locally, so why
| are prices increasing? I would expect grain and wheat to
| increase 500%, not power.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| It's a self inflicted green transition with no back up plan
| or a plan
| thfuran wrote:
| Are you saying things would've worked out better if Russian
| gas accounted for a higher percentage of eu energy before
| the sanctions?
| [deleted]
| im3w1l wrote:
| Electricity is very inelastic, which means that a tiny change
| in supply can massively affect the price. Only when it gets
| super expensive do people to start cutting down on their
| consumption, and supply and demand come into balance.
| locallost wrote:
| It's because not all electricity costs the same to produce,
| but the price is the same, determined by the most expensive
| producer. There is a shortage of electricity because France
| is generating a lot less than normal and this is made up by
| other countries. I would guess the UK is impacted by higher
| demand as well, thus the more expensive producers are
| delivering jacking up the prices for everyone.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > determined by the most expensive producer
|
| That's wrong. The price is determined by demand and supply,
| which in turn is determined by what prices producers are
| willing to sell at and consumers are willing to buy at,
| plus other traders in the market.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The parent is providing valuable and spesific information
| on how energy market works, you are incorrecting him by
| reciting a generic market principle that everyone learns
| at school, without any insight of how it applies to
| situation at hand.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Hardly. Merit Order is just a particular way of setting
| the price similar to an auction, it still creates a
| normal(ish) market for electricity and demand and supply
| still largely determine the price, albeit not in the
| exact same way as a completely free market.
|
| Saying that price is "determined by the most expensive
| producer" without further context is still wrong.
| locallost wrote:
| It's correct for the day ahead price [1]. Of course the
| most expensive producer needs to be actually needed to
| satisfy the demand side.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_order
| makomk wrote:
| Which is to say that it's determined by both the supply
| and demand side: if the price were lower there would be
| people willing to buy at that price but not enough to
| sell them, and if it were higher there would presumably
| be people willing to sell at that price but not enough
| buyers. It is, in some fairly fundamental sense, the
| actual market price of electricity at that point in time.
| locallost wrote:
| Yes but renewables & nuclear suppliers would be willing
| to deliver for a lot less money. The question I answered
| was, why is it so expensive when we don't use so much
| gas. The price however gets set by the most expensive
| supplier. As soon as you need to use gas to deliver
| electricity, the price skyrockets.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| That's not entirely true. The prices of the underlying
| different electricity sources is different but they can't
| be traded separately. As a result the market is very
| dysfunctional.
| dazc wrote:
| We generate a lot of this electricity by burning gas which we
| have to buy from the market where prices are set relative to
| global supply and demand.
|
| This is why we originally stopped mining coal - because
| Russian gas was so cheap at the time that it was a no-
| brainer.
|
| What could possibly go wrong?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Coal has so many disadvantages beyond simple price that
| it's not even funny. It is by far the most deadly energy
| generation method.
| origin_path wrote:
| UK stopped mining coal mostly in the 1980s when Russia was
| still the Soviet Union. The cause was not Russian gas which
| isn't a direct substitute for coal anyway and especially
| not back then, but rather that the NUM destroyed the
| domestic coal industry, which became totally uncompetitive
| relative to more or less any foreign producers. It wasn't
| Russia specifically, it was that UK mining became
| dysfunctional and unreliable.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| is it fair to call it disfunctional? Are you expecting to
| compete on price with countries where workers have no
| rights, no health and safety and live a dog's life?
| trasz wrote:
| Those stereotypes about Australia are mostly unfounded
| nowadays.
| Sakos wrote:
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52758
|
| > The United Kingdom has the second-largest LNG
| regasification capacity in Europe (4.7 Bcf/d), and it can
| export up to 2.5 Bcf/d of natural gas to the European Union
| via the Interconnector pipeline into Belgium and the BBL
| pipeline into the Netherlands. Regasified LNG volumes in the
| United Kingdom averaged 2.9 Bcf/d from January through May
| 2022, and regasification facilities ran at a 63% utilization
| rate, up from 30% last year. _Exports from the United Kingdom
| via interconnecting pipelines to the European Union have run
| at close to maximum rates since March 2022._
|
| I would assume because of this.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Because electricity is sold across the entire European
| market. Low cost producers are going to sell to those who pay
| the most, to maximise profit, unless they're unable to move
| the electricity ( or more likely 'contra' it) to where it is
| intended to be consumed.
|
| Just like oil. The US has cheap oil but it's a global market,
| so everyone pays the (more or less) the same price regardless
| of how close they are to the oil.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also because electricity market is bit special how it
| operates. Suppliers tell what price they will sell and and
| then buyer at what price they will buy. And the price for
| all transactions will be set at highest match of supply to
| demand.
|
| Because demand side has no upper price limit the whole
| market price can raise to very high.
|
| Ofc, this ignores cases of own production, futures and so
| on.
| konschubert wrote:
| You're describing an auction principle. It's called
| merit-order.
|
| It is very efficient at creating a transparent market and
| finding the "natural" market price. The same price that a
| free and transparent market would converge to.
|
| The alternative are price caps. Which could be
| considered. But it's a choice between free and non-free
| markets.
|
| Blaming merit-order is shooting the messenger.
| [deleted]
| balderdash wrote:
| What makes gas different from wheat? US is a huge exporter of
| wheat, that doesn't mean us farmers/traders don't have their
| eye on what Ukrainian shortfalls imply for global balances?
|
| Same thing for gas, uk is competing with their neighbors for
| a resource that just got a whole lot more scarce (locally),
| causing prices to rise
| neural_thing wrote:
| Gas is, well, a gas. The only way to transport it in the
| absence of pipelines is liquifying it. LNG infrastructure
| is very hard to build, and right now there's no additional
| LNG capacity to ship gas to Europe. It takes a while to
| build.
|
| See https://doomberg.substack.com/p/have-fun-staying-cold
|
| From last November
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That's just wrong. The components of electricity generation -
| the fuel - has exploded in price.
|
| You may not be aware, but there's a war going on that is sort
| of impacting things on top of existing inflation.
|
| I realize picking a scape goat feels easy but it's poor form
| and leads to not fixing the actual problem.
| seydor wrote:
| If that were true countries that don't depend on russia would
| not be affected. Greece uses little natgas, and only only 4%
| of it is russian, yet it sees some of the most steep rises.
| origin_path wrote:
| Lots of countries import gas using LNG terminals. Those gas
| ships can go to any country that has import terminals and
| they set sail for the highest bidder. So gas is like oil,
| there's only a few global prices.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's not the Russian gas that is expensive, it's the
| intentional lack of supply of Russian gas that makes the
| market price for all gas go up (plus some other general
| market tightness due to COVID).
| DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
| Similar price trends are to be expected across all nodes in
| _highly_ interconnected grids.
| calaphos wrote:
| Capacity has decreased - mainly due to a lot of french nuclear
| reactors offline for scheduled and (correlated) unscheduled
| maintenance. France went from Europe's largest exporter to
| largest importer of power this year. Add to that a dry summer
| woth historically low water levels in rivers, disrupting
| cooling as well as things like coal transport for power plants.
|
| And natural gas, which usually covers the more elastic power
| demands is dramatically more expensive.
| adventured wrote:
| Not to mention Germany (largest economy in Europe) and their
| nuclear debacle. They could have spent the last 20 years
| building additional nuclear power and reducing dependency on
| Russia, instead of doing the opposite. 15+ years ago it was
| obvious what Putin was and the direction Russia was heading.
|
| Germany should be a super exporter of energy to the
| EU/Eurozone (they are a big electricity exporter, they should
| and could be considerably more so). They land border nine
| other nations (and are of course very close to Italy). They
| have the technical and financial ability to do it.
| Joeri wrote:
| Market price is based on the price of the most expensive
| megawatt produced. The price moves up and down to balance
| production with consumption, a necessity for every grid, and
| producers set prices at which they are willing to inject
| quantities.
|
| The current problem is that in europe a lot of the electricity
| is made by gas plants and those plants are seeing their costs
| rise. They therefore increase the price at which they are
| willing to inject capacity, and that means the market price
| moves up because that power is needed to satisfy demand. Gas
| plant operators are not making a lot of profit.
|
| Because every party injecting power at market rates (some of it
| is actually locked up in long term contracts) is paid the
| market rate, those not using gas to produce power are actually
| the ones making record profits. Wind is literally making
| windfall profits. There are talks of having an excess profit
| tax because right now governments are going into debt to
| finance energy subsidies that line the pockets of wind and
| nuclear operators (and of vladimir putin).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The people selling the gas plants the gas are also making
| windfall profits.
| Fiahil wrote:
| > The "electricity crisis" is a crisis for European consumers
|
| Well. I don't know where you live, but I'm not paying more than
| last year.
|
| I read about soaring prices being an issue in the UK. Prices,
| here, in France are fixed twice a year by the energy
| commission. Right now, residential electricity increased by 4%
| last February and remained unchanged at the start of August. So
| it means that whatever is happening in the market, is not
| affecting us. Actually, I will probably have 2-3 months of cash
| back at the end of the year.
|
| Not really a crisis, to be honest.
|
| However I would be very interested to know what is the
| situation like for my fellow European citizens !
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > electricity generation has not become more expensive
|
| A lot of generation in Europe is using gas, so it very much
| has. It's more or less a normal market experiencing a jump in
| price on inputs.
|
| If you can produce cheaper than the market price then you make
| lots of money. That's normal.
|
| The market is telling buyers to use less electricity and
| sellers to produce more. It's how markets work.
| andrepd wrote:
| That is predicated on the rational market hypothesis: that
| all agents have perfect information, make perfectly rational
| decision, there is no market friction, and goods are
| perfectly elastic. Of course, neither of these assumptions
| are true in this case.
|
| Back in the real world, we can look at hard data. Margins for
| energy producers and retailers have increased _massively_ in
| the latest quarter. Also, we know that markets don 't react
| directly (and exclusively) to fundamentals. They react to
| panics, they react to extremely complex interactions of
| manual and automatic trading algorithms. Reality is far from
| the simple "supply and demand" that economics 101 textbooks
| portray.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 1. You mean the efficient market hypothesis?
|
| 2. That does not apply here since we are talking
| cost/profit and not share price
|
| > The efficient market hypothesis (EMH), alternatively
| known as the efficient market theory, is a hypothesis that
| states that share prices reflect all information and
| consistent alpha generation is impossible.
|
| Nothing you say is about EMH. Nor does EMH predict that
| markets react only to "fundamentals", only in that shares
| reflect the whole set of information.
| bjourne wrote:
| But that just moves the question. Why has natural gas become
| more expensive when it has not become more expensive to
| produce? Furthermore, only 15% of Germany's power production
| comes from natural gas
| (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-
| energy-c...) and the market price has "only" tripled in the
| last year (https://www.euronews.com/my-
| europe/2022/08/25/europes-gas-pr...) while electricity prices
| have increased over 600%. This is price gouging.
| logicchains wrote:
| >Why has natural gas become more expensive when it has not
| become more expensive to produce?
|
| Price is a function of supply and demand. Supply was
| massively reduced by sanctions and war, so price goes up,
| simple as that.
|
| >This is price gouging.
|
| If electricity producers had enough pricing power to set
| the price to whatever they wanted without competition
| they'd already have done so years ago. Again, price is a
| function of supply and demand, cost of production is only
| one component.
| seydor wrote:
| No, the EU wholesale market uses a marginal price, that
| does not reflect the cost of generation (supply), but the
| highest cost available at any moment sets the price for
| everyone (at least as far as i understand). It s a free
| market but prices are set by a very inflexible rule.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| this doesn't change anything. If supply was higher, e.g.
| using solar/wind/nuclear/coal, prices would be lower
| seydor wrote:
| that would work only if non-gas sources generated enough
| so that gas is not needed at all. As it is right now,
| solar producers are getting a bonanza in profits because
| they are being paid at exorbitant prices. At this level,
| they have no incentive to ramp up production to remove
| gas from the equation.
| candiodari wrote:
| > At this level, they have no incentive to ramp up
| production
|
| In a monopoly situation, yes. Luckily there is
| competition, and at this level their competition has a
| great incentive to ramp up capacity. Which, frankly, is
| going to make them ramp up production so they can capture
| a bigger piece of the market when the situation isn't
| quite as ridiculous as it is today anymore.
| PeterisP wrote:
| There's no single "they" for "solar producers". No matter
| what the existing producers do, even if they would all
| illegally collude, the current prices make it attractive
| for individual households to install solar panels and
| thus add new solar capacity.
| iso1631 wrote:
| If I'm making $10 a day from my solar panel, so after 30
| days I'll make $300. Job done.
|
| It instead makes sense for me to buy a new second panel
| for $100 after 10 days and then I can make $20 a day,
| then 5 days later buy a 3rd.
|
| 30 days into this I'll have made $45, and be making $30 a
| day instead of $10.
| bjourne wrote:
| > Price is a function of supply and demand. Supply was
| massively reduced by sanctions and war, so price goes up,
| simple as that.
|
| But this is not true. Price is a function of whatever
| price the seller sets. Look at the actual circumstances
| rather than on mathematical models with no bearing on
| reality.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| > Price is a function of whatever price the seller sets.
|
| Only if customers are willing to buy at that price. Which
| is only true now because there are no cheaper competitors
| to turn to, which in turn is because the entire system is
| operating at capacity.
|
| Over time the high prices incentivizes bringing more
| power generation and transport online, which is exactly
| what we are seeing - new/reopened nuclear, coal, and nat
| gas plants are all planned or coming online across Europe
| and imports have spiked from places like the US. No one
| likes high prices but it does incentivize building more
| capacity that might lose money when prices are low, but
| make up for that when prices are high. This process
| doesn't happen over night but sanctions + war (roughly)
| did. Europe was lulled into complacency by consistent and
| cheap Russian gas for years.
|
| Also, don't overlook those transport costs. Networks
| across all energy types are severely constrained and
| underinvested in. Doesn't matter how cheap you can
| produce energy if you can't get it to your customers
| cheaply.
| bjourne wrote:
| Yes, of course there are no cheaper alternatives to turn
| to. The European electricity market is dominated by a
| small number of giants which essentially have no
| competition and does not compete with each other. It's
| not different from the housing market. Housing isn't
| freakishly expensive because it has become too expensive
| to build houses. It is because those who control the
| market have figured out how to screw over people who need
| a home to live in (which is almost everyone).
|
| It was the European Commission that designed the
| integrated electricity market because it was believed
| that a free market would guarantee low electricity prices
| for everyone. It seems very naive to believe that this
| system will function better in the future. For the energy
| giants it is more profitable to limit supply and jack up
| prices than to build more capacity.
| candiodari wrote:
| > Only if customers are willing to buy at that price.
| Which is only true now because there are no cheaper
| competitors to turn to, which in turn is because the
| entire system is operating at capacity.
|
| In other words, the price is the _marginal_ price: at the
| very edge. What is the highest price consumers want to
| pay for X amount of electricity. You should split it up:
| say price of electricity is 5$. That means:
|
| Electricity produced at 1$: sells for 5$
|
| Electricity produced at 2$: sells for 5$
|
| Electricity produced at 3$: sells for 5$
|
| Electricity produced at 4$: sells for 5$
|
| Electricity produced at 5$: sells for 5$
|
| Electricity produced at 6$: does not sell, plants get
| paused
| maximegarcia wrote:
| not all plants can be paused quickly...
|
| Sometimes that means: Electricity produced at x$: sells
| for -5$ (I pay you to use it)
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Yea there's a lot of forecasting, inefficiencies, and
| other distortions involved. Energy supply chains aren't
| easy
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Which is exactly how I would expect it to work. Now if
| producers expect prices to remain high, or for there to
| be repeated spikes in price, I would expect the $1, $2,
| $3, and maybe $4 producers to invest in additional
| production or storage over time to capture additional
| marketshare and thereby profits. Of course the "over
| time" part is important since that process can't happen
| overnight and is constrained by labor and components.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Depends on the country. Certainly this applies to a country
| like France that produces most of its electricity through
| nuclear, which they are in the process of fully nationalising.
|
| This gives them a lot of leeway to control prices without
| actually costing them anything.
| origin_path wrote:
| Of course it costs them! Nationalisation just means the
| losses of the nuclear industry are born by the taxpayer,
| which will surface in worse services in other areas.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| What I'm saying is that since production costs are stable,
| as long as they set a price that covers actual costs then
| this price control does not actually cost them money, only
| potential profits, so it is sustainable.
| origin_path wrote:
| It leads to shortages instead as people find ways to
| arbitrage the price - buy French nuclear power cheap then
| export it for profit.
|
| Fundamentally you can have high prices, shortages or you
| can disconnect France from the rest of the European grid
| but you cannot just have cheaper prices in France.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is absurd in several levels - you can't move
| electricity in a box, there are only a few interconnects,
| all of them regulatable and controllable, they can only
| move like 15% of tital supply and prices are different
| for business and for home use.
|
| And nothing you've said seems to have relevance to
| shortages
| cinntaile wrote:
| It's not a market failure, this is how marginal pricing is
| supposed to work. This incentivizes market participants to
| build out production thus pushing prices down again.
| rconti wrote:
| It's not a market failure. Markets are not supposed to keep a
| steady profit margin regardless of demand.
|
| Production cannot be scaled up and down infinitely and
| immediately.
|
| The price is a market signal.
|
| The fact that production cannot be immediately scaled to serve
| the customer demand and bring prices (and therefore profits)
| back down to a "normal" level is not a market failure either;
| it's simply a physical reality.
| Ekaros wrote:
| The true market failure is on demand side. Demand is what
| drives the price not the supply. With low enough demand the
| price just doesn't go very high.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Sure, you are free to be the first one to freeze to death
| this winter or melt during the summer.
|
| I don't think anyone is meaningfully wasting electricity in
| Europe currently. Demand can't go to zero. Supply dropped
| significantly.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Ekaros is correct. Lots of people pay a fixed cost for
| their electricity whether it is generated at peak time
| with lots of gas or in the middle of the night with wind
| and nuclear.
|
| We don't currently do a good job of responding to price
| signals. We have some plans to expand this, which are
| being rushed into service after being neglected for a
| long time.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61949246
|
| And even that has to lie about "it not being about
| rationing" because price signals are so foreign to the
| consumer energy market.
| tenpies wrote:
| The problem is the huge role government has had in this,
| which means regular market mechanisms won't work for a while.
|
| 1. The Western governments have spent a decade demonizing
| fossil and nuclear energy. For that whole time, big funds
| have divested, and investors punished. No major fund is going
| to touch this sector, especially not if the intent is a
| capital project. Nuclear is just seeing a turnaround as some
| governments regain their rationality (e.g. Japan), but others
| seem to be utterly hopeless (Canada, Germany).
|
| 2. The above means that schools stopped offering the programs
| necessary to train the workers for the industry. There is an
| entire generational gap now in oil and gas trades, from the
| roughneck to the engineers.
|
| 3. The government's incompetence has caused rampant inflation
| which, affects these industries too. Suddenly you have to
| deal with the labour shortage, there being no raw inputs (the
| year supply of anything from pipe to mud was sold out in most
| markets by Q1 of '22), and you have no idea what great ideas
| government will pass by next quarter so you have to price
| high to build a buffer. All of this leads to huge
| uncertainty.
|
| The worst part in my eyes, is that we're only really seeing
| the beginning of this. Governments are still on their ESG-
| above-reality stance. Approval from their UN SDG and WEF
| cronies is still more important than their constituents well-
| being.
|
| I honestly feel for the Europeans that saw this coming and
| voted accordingly - but more for the Africans and Asians who
| will be bid out by Europe and be faced with starvation of
| freezing. They had no say in this and they will pay the
| steepest price for Europe's ESG hubris.
| biehl wrote:
| Denmark is going to have some pretty cheap hours around 13:00, so
| charging an electric car is not going to be bad tomorrow.
| tomp wrote:
| To put this into context:
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas
|
| I call this "the Greta curve".
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| You do you, but it has little to do with her? Specifically,
| Greta Thunberg had nothing to do with invading Ukraine or, if
| we want to ignore the most obvious cause, the decision to phase
| out nuclear power.
| roflyear wrote:
| Am I missing something, or does the price still not seem that
| high in USD? I'm used to paying like $.15 per kWh which is half
| roughly of the prices in Europe? It's big but... Idk
| pornel wrote:
| This curve is Putin's doing.
|
| It wouldn't have been so devastating if we took Greta seriously
| and switched to fossil-free energy sources.
| quink wrote:
| Non-renewable energy problematic?
|
| Let's blame advocates for renewable energy.
|
| That'll make people see reason and solve the issue /s
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| What your funny name for France, where we pay as much (if not
| more) than Germany for our electricity since the start of the
| year? More than half the country's nuclear power capacity has
| been shut down, mostly due to safety concerns https://nuclear-
| monitor.fr/#/mix.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Who is paying more for electricity in France? To my
| knowledge, the majority of French residential subscribe to
| the state-fixed "Tarif bleu", which hasn't increased price at
| all since February, and is still well below the German
| average. It is, in fact, for added ridiculousness, well below
| the retail prices of most of the countries we import energy
| from.
| gniv wrote:
| > Who is paying more for electricity in France?
|
| EDF is. Which will end up as deficits in France's budget.
| fest wrote:
| At the current electricity prices, break even point for household
| PV installations even in coldish climate (Latvia, Eastern Europe)
| is on the order of 3-4 years without subsidies.
|
| Granted, it does not solve the problem that the energy I'll spend
| in the fall/winter has to come from somewhere but financially it
| is at the very least closer to being balanced out.
|
| Also, this is in a country, where the net metering system is
| favorable to households (one can spend the full amount that has
| been fed to grid).
| seydor wrote:
| But if too many people buy panels, then europe will stop
| burning gas, the price will go down fast, and their profits
| will evaporate
| jacquesm wrote:
| Buying panels, inverters, heatpumps and booking installer times
| are significant bottle necks at the moment for further
| household PV installation.
| epolanski wrote:
| Also: legislation and beaurocracy.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Or, at night also? Solar is all fun and games until the sun
| goes down and your grid needs to not collapse.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| A solar charged EV will keep your house going for several
| days. Other storage solutions are available. With the right
| amount of square meters and storage, you could disconnect
| from the grid entirely. For most people that would be too
| expensive but it's perfectly feasible in large parts of the
| world. Especially the US. With the exception of Alaska, most
| of it is much further south than most of Europe. Plenty of
| sun hours throughout the year. Even in winter.
|
| So, even in winter you'd be able to squeeze some kilowatt
| hours out of a few solar panels. Just install more of them
| until you have enough to charge up your batteries during the
| darkest part of the winter and you are good to go. Maybe add
| some wind to diversify.
|
| For heating there are thermal storage solutions that use
| cheap materials like sand or basalt. Charge in the summer,
| heat in the winter. All you need is some pipes, mass,
| insulation and a way to dump energy in the system. There are
| various prototype systems operational already and they work
| as advertised. You might wonder about the cost of a silo of
| locally sourced sand. I'd say it's probably going to be dirt
| cheap.
|
| EV batteries are going to be great for balancing the grid.
| Vehicle to grid charge connectors are already being
| standardized and multiple vehicles that support that are
| being produced already. Millions on the road in the next few
| years. Twh of power. A very tempting target for would be
| virtual power plant companies. Like Tesla.
|
| The main challenge with wind and solar is bridging the few
| weeks a year where production of both may drop dramatically
| in the winter for more than a day. The combination of no
| wind, low sun and little amount of sun hours, and overcast
| skies is kind of deadly. In northern Europe that might last
| as long as a month. The rest of the year there is going to be
| either or both enough solar and wind.
|
| Mostly the real challenge the rest of the time is actually
| what to do with the growing amounts of excess power. Plenty
| of answers to that but it's not a fully resolved issue.
| Mostly current wind operators seem to regularly disable their
| wind mills by weather-vaning them instead. They're not
| broken, they've been turned off because they are producing
| more than needed.
|
| We're going to end up with way more power than what we need.
| People are installing solar panels on their roof that
| generate much more power than they need, even when aggregated
| over time. The current crisis is actually going to result in
| even more people doing that. This poses a serious challenge
| for energy produces still dumb enough to depend on burning
| fossil fuels. Most of the time they'll be selling at a loss
| or completely shutting down operations. And a few weeks a
| year they suddenly have to deliver a little bit of power. Not
| a great business to be in.
| legulere wrote:
| Luckily most electricity use is during the day and wind blows
| also in the night and more in winter when there's less sun.
| seydor wrote:
| the current crisis, for most european countries, is totally due
| to the failure of the EU energy market. The electiricy prices are
| set by the highest generator, which currently is natural gas. So
| , eventhough southern countries use less than 20-15% gas, their
| prices soar because they are determined by gas.
|
| Spain and portugal are the only countries which managed to get an
| exception to offset this mechanism months ago, by effectively
| capping the gas prices and not allowing it to go bonkers.
|
| The rest of the EU should explain itself to its citizens. These
| levels of prices do not represent the cost of energy but the
| stupid continuation of a supposedly free market in time of war.
|
| https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/europes-power...
| 323 wrote:
| If that were true the price difference would be quickly
| arbitraged away by energy traders. They would buy this "cheap"
| energy you speak of and sell it at the "inflated" market price,
| thus converging them to the same price. And yes, they would
| find a way to bypass the "mandatory fake price".
|
| > _Listening to European Electricity Traders Is Very, Very
| Scary. Keeping the lights on in Europe this winter may prove
| more difficult than governments are currently admitting._
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-08-26/europe...
| seydor wrote:
| It's not possible, everyone gets the same price.
|
| https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/europes-
| power...
| 323 wrote:
| According to this theory the price of energy should be the
| same in all of Europe, since it's the same mandated price.
| But it's not according to article graph.
| seydor wrote:
| the price of gas sets the marginal price at which power
| is sold by all generators at any time. Different
| countries buy different contracts , but they all see
| skyrocketing prices , at different levels
|
| https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-
| consumers/eu-....
| bushbaba wrote:
| Wonder why the EU hasn't stepped in with rationing and price
| controls. This is price gouging to the detriment of its citizens.
| nickpp wrote:
| Rationing and price controls is how you end up with shortages.
|
| A functioning market will provide the motivation to search,
| find and finance solutions instead.
| bushbaba wrote:
| The functioning market will decimate industry and impact the
| poor. It's a long term disaster.
|
| This is something where China has done a good job. The EU
| should plan who gets the energy available and how much to
| charge. Otherwise the EU will be dealt a blow to industry so
| large it might not ever recover.
| nickpp wrote:
| Planned economies have been historically unable to even
| _feed_ their citizens. Let 's hope EU won't make that
| mistake.
| sofixa wrote:
| Some countries have, e.g. France.
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