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

Post by Ekaros » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

jabl wrote: post #102

mhandley wrote: post #10

The strike price for nuclear power from Hinkley Point C when it becomes operational will be £92.50/MWh. This has received a lot of criticism for being too high. With current wholesale rates at £385/MWh, suddenly Hinkley Point C doesn't look so expensive any more.

Well, the price for HPC is very expensive. The stupid thing is that by structuring the subsidy in a smarter way the UK could have gotten it at half the price. I've seen no reason why they did it how they did except adherence to some ideological dogma. Or putting my conspiracy glasses on, maybe some politically well-connected bankers in London made off like robbers at the expense of the public at large.

Post by jungturk » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #279

pydry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery backed solar/wind is cheaper than nuclear these days. It's not been that way for long though. Economic grid scale batteries are here but still relatively new. It makes sense to continue running old nuclear plants but not to build new ones. Much too expensive.

Is it? Are you taking into account battery degradation from 1 cycle every day? The vast majority of battery chemistries won't last more than 3-4 years under those circumstances, and those that would are either much more expensive or experimental. As of now storing 10kWh at 1kW costs around 1000$ from the cells alone. If you're changing them every 3 years then you have to spend 10 000$/kW over 30 years whereas nuclear…

Post by Ekaros » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

spyke112 wrote: post #40

PJ_Maybe wrote: post #25

In Austria, the price per kWh has quadrupled since May 2020, which is when I moved in to a new home. Unfortunately this [0] chart from my provider only goes back 12 months, but you can see even during this short time that the price increased from 5.81c per kWh to 12.43c per kWh, which is more than 200%. I checked some of my statements, and in May 2020 the electricity price was 3.13c per kWh, which represents an incre…

Still cheap compared to Denmark. I'm not one for optimizing my electric bill, so I've probably got a fairly bad deal by paying between 27 c/kWh and 34 c/kWh. 75% of the electric bill consists of fees to the state anyway, it's quite ridicules. The upside is that these fluctuations are kind of mitigated and smoothed out.

Post by ephbit » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

tjansen wrote: post #69

adrianN wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are pretty cheap and storage keeps getting cheaper, that's why they make sense.

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...…

Post by ephbit » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #236

nradov wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then why do countries rely on foreign oil, gas, and coal all the time?