Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Day ahead electricity prices for EU

euenergy.live

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 596 posts

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#111

Post by dmw_ng »

bitL wrote: post #103
dmw_ng wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 effect…

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?

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.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#112

Post by admissionsguy »

daneel_w wrote: post #82
admissionsguy wrote: post #35

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.

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.

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.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#113

Post by google234123 »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #83
tomp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-dow…

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.

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.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#114

Post by locallost »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #98
locallost wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#115

Post by google234123 »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #80
pveierland wrote: post #50

Current spot price in northern Norway is €10.16/MWh, while it is €745.08/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 a…

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.

A huge fusion reactor in the sky that isn't available in the evening or when it's cloudy.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#116

Post by rypskar »

pveierland wrote: post #50

Current spot price in northern Norway is €10.16/MWh, while it is €745.08/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 a…

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

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#117

Post by rndgermandude »

bitL wrote: post #4

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...

>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)

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#119

Post by locallost »

Toutouxc wrote: post #110
locallost wrote: post #95

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 b…

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.

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.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#120

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

thrwaway9871 wrote: post #67
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

>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?

Post reply on HN