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Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

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Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#151

Post by nradov »

ben_w wrote: post #72
tjansen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are decades away from having enough storage to make wind and power a reliable power source. There is not even technology that would scale up enough to store a country's power for weeks or at least a few days. China just has announced ambitious plans to install storage for 100 GWh by 2030. China's electric power generation capacity is 2200 GW (in 2020). That's not even enough to provide electricity for 5 minutes...…

> There is not even technology that would scale up enough to store a country's power for weeks or at least a few days. Don’t mistake a manufacturing limit for a tech scaling limit. While it may take decades to get there, batteries could do that; in the mean time, intercontinental HVDC connections could substitute for some of that storage (not all the storage all at once unless mining increases, but certainly plausibl…

While intercontinental HVDC interconnects are technically feasible, no major world power would ever depend on those for essential power supplies. It's just too risky if foreign countries can cut off your electricity during a war or other crisis. Energy independence is strategically critical in a way that transcends economics.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#152

Post by cbmuser »

fundatus wrote: post #128
shakow wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power Right now ( https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE ), Germany is importing from France alone the equivalent of a bit under two French nuclear power plants at full power.

Might be, but in total Germany is a net exporter of electricity.

That’s irrelevant since Germany is often exporting electricity at cheap or even negative prices.

The net value also doesn’t buy you anything if you have to import electricity due to lack of local production.

France can self-supply itself with electricity.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#153

Post by jabl »

PeterisP wrote: post #133
jabl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe should perhaps have diversified their gas suppliers, with more LNG. If climate change is supposed to be an existential threat, we shouldn't be doing major investments into fossil infrastructure. Anyway, if we spend all that money to build LNG infrastructure, like terminals, ships, and having contracts with suppliers etc. just for the few and far between situations where the price of LNG drops below Russian g…

One of considerations for LNG is that it's not purely an economic concern as from a country perspective energy independence might be considered just as important as climate change (in the short term) and it's worth paying some premium to secure it. Just as Europe has farming subsidy policies that essentially result in Europe paying a premium for food over what would be a "global market price" (importing more food fro…

I fully agree. Energy, particularly gas, is certainly seen as geopolitics in the Kremlin.

That being said, I think the focus should be on (massively!) building out wind/solar/nuclear/transmission/storage, allowing Europe to tackle both climate change and dependency on a not-entirely friendly Russia at the same time.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#154

Post by shakow »

Retric wrote: post #140
shakow wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power Right now ( https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE ), Germany is importing from France alone the equivalent of a bit under two French nuclear power plants at full power.

Germany is a net exporter of electricity to France 13.7TWh in 2017. But they trade a lot of power back and forth. https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2018/Ja...

They are a net exporter because they have to sell their wind/solar power for cheap when they have too much of it, but are then forced to buy nuclear/hydro power from their neighbors when their coal power plants are not enough to compensate the ramp-up in demand and/or the lack of wind/sun.

France could be electrically self-sufficient, Germany couldn't -- whether they would depend on FR/BE/NL/... being irrelevant.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#155

Post by beerandt »

Retric wrote: post #140
shakow wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power Right now ( https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE ), Germany is importing from France alone the equivalent of a bit under two French nuclear power plants at full power.

Germany is a net exporter of electricity to France 13.7TWh in 2017. But they trade a lot of power back and forth. https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2018/Ja...

Buy high and sell low is not a strategy that's improved buy scaling it up.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#156

Post by legulere »

cbmuser wrote: post #148
dan-robertson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French generation is ~70% nuclear (10% wind/solar) and German is ~10% (~40% wind/solar). Yet their prices track each other closely. So I think this explanation is too simplistic. Possibly there are large interconnects between the French and German grids levelling out wholesale prices, but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power for this imagined scenario where nuclear makes a big difference.

France is supplying electricity to all of its neighbors and they’re trading in the same market. Thus, if electricity is scarse and expensive across Europe, French wholesale prices rise as well. FWIW, the French government forces EDF to sell the electricity to its national competitors at a fixed price of around 50 Euro/MWh, IIRC.

Germany is a net-exporter of electricity

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#157

Post by nradov »

adrianN wrote: post #83
tjansen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are decades away from having enough storage to make wind and power a reliable power source. There is not even technology that would scale up enough to store a country's power for weeks or at least a few days. China just has announced ambitious plans to install storage for 100 GWh by 2030. China's electric power generation capacity is 2200 GW (in 2020). That's not even enough to provide electricity for 5 minutes...…

We're also pretty far away from the kinds of renewable penetration where you actually need a lot of storage, so we have plenty of time left to build more batteries and electrolyzers.

Electrolysis is extremely inefficient. It's unlikely to be a practical means of grid scale energy storage any time soon.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#158

Post by MayeulC »

Factorium wrote: post #71
mem0r1 wrote: post #6

Not building new nuclear power plants in the last 30 years was a major mistake, in terms of energy supply security as well as CO2 emissions.

What about building huge solar plants in Western Sahara and Morocco? The Moroccan Government seems pretty friendly and stable. If we then configure all our electric cars to charge during the day, and discharge from 6pm onwards, we can address a lot of the evening peak.

What about Spanish deserts for starters?

Germany might get more kWh per euro invested in the panels it it was to construct them there, though of course it wouldn't be with german workers.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#160

Post by KingOfCoders »

shakow wrote: post #137
fundatus wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be, but in total Germany is a net exporter of electricity.

1. That's not the point, the point being to illustrate how interconnected the EU grid is. 2. Regarding your comment, I personally don't see Germany importing 72 gCO2/MW power to export 399 gCO2/MW power as a good thing for anyone but coal companies, but whatever floats your boat.

"the point being to illustrate how interconnected the EU grid is."

Which is a good thing. Very few countries are self sufficient regarding cars for example, or Kiwis. So humanity invented trading and people trade things they don't have for things they have - so good interconnection is a good thing.

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