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

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

#231

Post by trenchgun »

mrweasel wrote: post #206

I've not sure if has changed in the last few years, but one issue Denmark has run into is that our tariffs on CO2 actually harms the use of surplus green energy. Most of Denmark (at least in the cities) are heats using hot water from remote heating plants, either surplus heat from power generation or garbage incineration, with auxiliary gas and coal plants. 15 years ago many of the smaller gas powered heating plants…

I don't get it. Why would they pay CO2 tariff for heating with wind powered electricity?

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

#232

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #54
jakub_g wrote: post #32

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 renewa…

The German government and the EU as a whole is often much more focused on optics than data based solutions.

x1000 this! Lots of EU and German government decisions seem to be made for PR reasons rather than for the benefit of their citizens.

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

#234

Post by mlang23 »

marcosscriven wrote: post #179
probably_wrong wrote: post #148

> On Monday 10th February 2020 something historical happened. For the first time, the market price of electricity fell below zero in Finland.(...) While this single day was a very windy one... I feel I should point out that "a very windy day" is a big understatement. February 10, 2020 was the day when storm Sabine arrived in northern Europe. In Germany, all medium and long distance trains stopped (electric trains, bt…

We called it storm Ciara in the UK. I wonder why we don’t unify names.

Well, the UK is apparently not very interested in unifying things, nor in being part of the EU...

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

#235

Post by mft_ »

csomar wrote: post #191

Title is not really accurate: 1. Electricity is not free in Germany, it's actually expensive; and 2. Germans do heat their homes.

I can see part of your point. The title is slightly awkwardly worded - maybe because the author of the article isn't a native English speaker?

Instead, perhaps:

'Why won't Germans heat their homes with free electricity?'

...or maybe all of it be rephrased a little:

'Why won't Germans heat their homes with electricity, even when it is free?'

(I think the second version best captures the two questions dealt with within the article - the German propensity to heat their homes with natural gas, and the odd taxation system meaning that 'free' electricity isn't really free.)

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

#236

Post by louthy »

marcosscriven wrote: post #179
probably_wrong wrote: post #148

> On Monday 10th February 2020 something historical happened. For the first time, the market price of electricity fell below zero in Finland.(...) While this single day was a very windy one... I feel I should point out that "a very windy day" is a big understatement. February 10, 2020 was the day when storm Sabine arrived in northern Europe. In Germany, all medium and long distance trains stopped (electric trains, bt…

We called it storm Ciara in the UK. I wonder why we don’t unify names.

I wonder why we even name storms in the first place. All it does is feed the 24 hour news monster

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

#237

Post by dharma1 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #186

Interestingly, most of Finland heats with electricity. I used to live there before I moved to Germany. Unlike Germany, Finland does not use a lot of natural gas. So, Germans subsidizing Finnish heating with clean energy is not necessarily a bad deal for Finland. I'd say it's a better deal for the planet than Russia subsidizing gas usage in e.g. Belarus, which is currently negotiating a new deal for this with Russia (…

The best way to heat homes IMHO is geothermal energy. It is clean and renewable. There is an element of electricity consumption, but far less than with direct electric heating.

There is a shift in Finland to geothermal, chosen for most new builds now, and district heating systems are exploring deep geothermal for heating whole towns and cities.

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

#238

Post by Tepix »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #203
csomar wrote: post #191

Title is not really accurate: 1. Electricity is not free in Germany, it's actually expensive; and 2. Germans do heat their homes.

Your point (1) is the point of the article. If the market price of electricity is 0€/MWh, the retail price is still bloody expensive because there's a ton of taxes, most of which do not relate to source of the energy nor its cost. You claim (2) is a misunderstanding of the title. The title is intended to be interpreted as "Why Germans won't heat their homes with electricity, even if it's free". That is how I immediat…

The market price does not directly correlate with the retail price even if you take into account taxes and other fees.

The average market price may affect the retail prices in the long run if it goes up or down.

We're seeing prices for electricity as low as 0€ (or lower) because there isn't enough storage capacity.

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

#239

Post by Tepix »

nickysielicki wrote: post #227
rini17 wrote: post #13

Here in a central european country, end-user price for Russian natural gas is about 4 eurocents/kWh. Electricity is 12 cents/kWh, in Germany even more iirc. I have no idea about wholesale spot prices, but I don't see any incentive to switch to electricity as the price isn't going below 4 cents so often.

That’s crazy. I use Griddy in Texas and my price has been generally below $0.02c/kWh the past two months.

You're talking electricity cost? $0.02c/kWh doesn't really cover the cost (not to mention the environmental cost if it's made from coal). So yes, that's crazy.

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

#240

Post by pritovido »

robocat wrote: post #77
rini17 wrote: post #13

Here in a central european country, end-user price for Russian natural gas is about 4 eurocents/kWh. Electricity is 12 cents/kWh, in Germany even more iirc. I have no idea about wholesale spot prices, but I don't see any incentive to switch to electricity as the price isn't going below 4 cents so often.

“ An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) will typically produce around 3kW thermal energy for every 1kW of electrical energy consumed” i.e. modern electric heating might cost you 4¢ per kWh of heating. Comparing kWh for natural gas (some loss up flue) with a heat pump in your case it seems they cost roughly the same marginally (although you might have grossly different installation costs, risks of outages, and CO2 impact dep…

Air sources Heat Pump in Germany are extremely inefficient because, guess what? Germany air is very cold in Winter, as most of it has continental climate.

What you can do is make a hole in the ground, put pipes on it and recirculate fluids. But this is way more expensive.

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