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Day ahead electricity prices for EU

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481–490 of 596 posts

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#481
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Announce a $1 trillion nuclear ... Do you know who is in charge in Germany? The greens, which don't even want to extend the usage of 3 of the 6 available nuclear plants (supposed to "slowly" shut down at the end of this year). And now you come and say "hey sorry but we need more nuclear reactors"? Sure. Much better to go to countries which are barely respecting human rights, bow and buy their fuel and gas, because…

> Do you know who is in charge in Germany? The greens ... No ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag

The greens are part of the current government, I wonder what's not clear about the previous message?

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#483
post #391
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably missing thermal mass in the house. Comes with bio-sourced insulating material, but usually not with rock/glass whool or polystyrene & the like.

Thermal mass doesn't help if it's hot for a days. Then it just keeps the heat. In winter, the house works great to retain heat. But as I learned during construction when I had to prepare for laying flooring, it took a while to heat it up.

A few ressources on how to use thermal mass and diurnal/nocturnal temperature gap to handle summer heat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_mass#Thermal_mass_for_...

https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/thermal-mass

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not screwed. We're just witnessing the accelerated death of the fossil fuel based power generation industry and it's making renewable power extremely lucrative. Prices are high because of gas prices. Except it's August and Europe is producing a lot of solar power and a fair bit of wind power. That's why there are no blackouts. There is no power shortage; just a gas shortage. Europe has plenty of reserves to gen…

I agree with all that, but in the short term things are going to be very expensive. As I already wrote, I see it as an opportunity to do what you said - ditch fossil fuels for good. There's no point in doing anything else, like whining. But if you think the landing will be anything other than rough, then we'll have to disagree.

It's going to be a rough ride; at least the coming winter for sure. But I'm very optimistic about the long term effects. In fact, I see this as setting Europe up for a period of economic growth. Getting rid of fossil fuels decades ahead of schedule is going to involve a lot of public spending and there is going to be a massive return on investment. Big public spending is generally great for economies. Once that starts working, there are going to be a lot of other countries that will want in on the action. Countries investing massively in serving that need are going to do well in the next decades.

Germany, which hasn't done much public spending in decades has just unlocked hundreds of billions for investment in military and energy. Other countries are doing similar things. That started happening within weeks of the invasion and it's just the beginning. This will soon add up to trillions in spending.

And of course there is the notion that Russia might eventually decide that they want to sell some gas again after all. Gas prices are high currently and that compensates for the loss in export volume for them. But those prices are inevitably going to come down eventually as other energy sources become more available and the world adjusts. Russia seems to have no good plan economically other than selling gas to Europe. This winter is going to suck a lot harder for them than for anyone else (well except for Ukraine) and it's debatable if their exports will ever recover to the pre-war level.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#485
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Announce a $1 trillion nuclear build-out plan for the EU, to build at least 50-60 new nuclear power plants. Go big, really big, and get started on it soon. Why can't Europe go Manhattan Project / Apollo big for such a critical matter? It's cowardice, a lack of daring, if they choose not to. They have the expertise, they have the financial capability, they are lacking the will (so far). To an extent you can scare mark…

>Announce a $1 trillion nuclear build-out plan Ready in 10-20 years.

Yep, too little too late. Nuclear is going to miss this party. By the time any of this would feasibly be ready this crisis will be ancient history.

The smart move is to completely ignore nuclear and go straight to renewables. Proven technology that is being deployed orders of magnitude faster and at an orders of magnitude larger scale already.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have people considered battery trucks? I don't mean battery-powered trucks, but trucks full of batteries. It seems kind of silly when you can use hydrogen or natural gas in your trucks instead, but battery trucks may be the lowest-loss form of long-distance electricity transport.

I think a truckfull of batteries would have barely enough energy to transport itself

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#487
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why has natural gas become more expensive when it has not become more expensive to produce? Price is a function of supply and demand. Supply was massively reduced by sanctions and war, so price goes up, simple as that. >This is price gouging. If electricity producers had enough pricing power to set the price to whatever they wanted without competition they'd already have done so years ago. Again, price is a function…

No, the EU wholesale market uses a marginal price, that does not reflect the cost of generation (supply), but the highest cost available at any moment sets the price for everyone (at least as far as i understand). It s a free market but prices are set by a very inflexible rule.

The marginal price of any good is the cost to produce one additional unit of that good. That applies to electricity too.

Saying "the highest cost available at any moment sets the price for everyone" is misleading, it's also the lowest marginal price required to satisfy the total load required to supply the market.

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That’s not entirely true. The prices of the underlying different electricity sources is different but they can’t be traded separately. As a result the market is very dysfunctional.

> As a result the market is very dysfunctional.

You're stating that without evidence, but the kind of auctions that the electricity market requires are similar to opening auctions for stocks. Would you claim they're very dysfunctional?

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Price is a function of whatever price the seller sets. Only if customers are willing to buy at that price. Which is only true now because there are no cheaper competitors to turn to, which in turn is because the entire system is operating at capacity. Over time the high prices incentivizes bringing more power generation and transport online, which is exactly what we are seeing - new/reopened nuclear, coal, and nat…

> Only if customers are willing to buy at that price. Which is only true now because there are no cheaper competitors to turn to, which in turn is because the entire system is operating at capacity. In other words, the price is the marginal price: at the very edge. What is the highest price consumers want to pay for X amount of electricity. You should split it up: say price of electricity is 5$. That means: Electrici…

There is some context missing there: the amount of power buyers need. So a simplified example:

Buyers are willing to pay $5 to secure 100GW of power. Sellers are: 80GW Solar at $3 and 20GW Coal at $5.

At 100GW the price is $5 because it's the price that will secure 100GW. If buyers only needed 80GW the price would be $3.

There is only one market price and it's the price that gets the required quantity of power (as you say).

Re: Day ahead electricity prices for EU

#490
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how a market works. You say "Czechs" but it's Czech producers and Czech consumers (respectively) making those transactions. Where the market is situated is irrelevant. If you're making electricity that cheaply right now you are indeed getting rich, and so you should. The market is what is doing something about it. Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and as consumers reduce th…

Rules for this market are a lot more complex than a straightforward producer / consumer one though. That give a lot of room for biased / non-optimal behaviors For example, only gaz-based electricity producers « needs » to be paid such a high price. Nuclear or renewable would be perfectly fine with much lower price. Or, if we had not one market, but one market per type of energy used to produce electricity, we would a…

Yes but it's a multi-buyer multi-seller simultaneous auction for a required electricity load.

Some sellers will get more than they offered, but that's how the auction works, there can only be one market price to secure the given quantity of electricity.

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