Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#31

Post by lnsp » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #10

I feel like the issue is that a lot of consumers get stuck paying a fixed per kWh delivery/transmission fee. IMO: this doesn’t make sense. Transmission and distribution costs are largely the amortization of the cost of building the system peak carrying capacity. There’s no shame in charging higher D&T rates during peak times and near-zero rates at 3AM. Could also make electricity taxes a percentage instead of a fixed…

About encourage domestic consumption: the local power infrastructure does not have enough capacity to distribute all the energy produced by wind turbines (in the north) across the country.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#32

Post by jakub_g » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

I'm rather a noob in the topic, but I've been reading in recent months about energy market and it seems like a collective insanity in the light of the climate crisis.

- In most(whole?) Europe, electricity used by trains is taxed higher than jet fuel used by planes (legacy measure from decades ago which was meant to boost air market; of course now it's hugely difficult to change it)

- Germany went strongly into renewables which is laudable, but CO2 footprint barely changed, because...

- Going away from nuclear and into renewables is in theory good, but the open secret is that you can never reach 100% renewables. So you need a backup, which is either gas or coal. In fact Germany even recently invested in new coal powered plants.

- Basically the effect of going away from nuclear is increasing CO2 emissions, and this is the last thing that we want at this time. But even Macron wants to reduce nuclear % in power production of France. Which means more CO2.

Am I missing something or this is total madness?

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#33

Post by duxup » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

haser_au wrote: post #28

duxup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow, charge ... who for what?

1) Implement a carbon tax (price on carbon) 2) Build a CCS Plant [1] 3) Run CCS plant using renewable energy. Charge your customers (people who need to offset their carbon footprint by buying carbon credits, such as big industry). 4) Profit [1] http://www.ccsassociation.org/what-is-ccs/

Considering the price is 0 at times, does that make sense? More capacity?

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#34

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #17

This is why identifying unintended consequences beforehand is so important. "We want green energy -- let's subsidize green energy by taxing electricity." Seems fair enough... fast forward several years and: 1. People burn fossil fuels for heating because electricity is too expensive, increasing their carbon footprint. 2. Poorer people in apartments and cities pay out the nose to fund rebates to wealthier suburban hom…

[deleted]

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#35

Post by allendoerfer » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #19

allendoerfer wrote: post #15

Using electricity to heat buildings should be one of the last steps to take, after almost everything else using energy is renewable. Electricity is a precious form of energy, while heat is primitive. Converting in both directions is not lossless, so you want to keep the precious form. The author makes it seem like that the negative prices are constant, which is not the case. Germany also does not have 100% renewable…

I couldn't disagree more. Electric heating via heat pump is ridiculously efficient and has a much bigger bang for your carbon-reducing buck than anything else a homeowner can do.

I don't have anything against heat pumps. I just don't think that they would solve the problems the article is talking about. I would put heat pumps all over the place, once electric energy, transportation etc. are 100% renewable.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#36

Post by dekhn » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

I recall talking to some europeans and they said they like their driers, which only half dry clothes (they put them up on a line to finish) but use less energy. It's some sort of virtue thing, I guess.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#37

Post by inetknght » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #18

inetknght wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mess? Turn that around into an opportunity: charge for clean-energy-powered carbon capture.

I'm not sure I follow, charge ... who for what?

I'm sorry I thought I was clear. Let me try to make it clearer:

> That seems like a recipe for folks just building endlessly regardless of demand

In some ways, yes. If so, it definite could create a problem wherein there's more supply than demand.

> pulling money from government...

The ethics of government capture aside, this sounds to me like that's rather the _point_ of a government subsidy on something: to build more supply of that something.

> and an eventual mess when you fix it and nobody is making money suddenly...

Fix what? The idea that there's too much electricity and so nobody makes money? Then come up with another way to use the electricity. Charge money to use the excess electricity for something useful. For example: capturing carbon.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#38

Post by jsjddbbwj » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #36

I recall talking to some europeans and they said they like their driers, which only half dry clothes (they put them up on a line to finish) but use less energy. It's some sort of virtue thing, I guess.

It's not a virtue thing. Energy is just very expensive in Europe compared to for example the US.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#39

Post by tssva » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

fishmaster wrote: post #3

I don't heat because I want it cold. It's hot enough in summer, in winter it's finally cool.

Germans are heating their homes just not with electricity. A better title for the article would be, "Germans won't heat their homes with electricity even when it is free."

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#40

Post by olau » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

somerandomness wrote: post #20

Can somebody explain why electricity rates would go negative? That blows my mind. Edit: also why don’t they just mine some coins?

While subsidies are one cause, another cause is demand response problems:

Imagine you have a greenhouse factory producing strawberries. The strawberries come out of the factory on a conveyor belt. Now, you can't just turn off this factory easily since it might take a week to get it up running again and you don't have any storage, so what happens when nobody wants your strawberries for a day?

You pay someone to take them.

And yes, it happens to physical products too, e.g. household electronics - you need to pay someone to scrap them.