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In Defense of Electricity Markets

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Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#111

Post by thedrbrian »

dukeyukey wrote: post #60
cyberax wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. They are not fine. Europe is floundering with its renewable transition. Right now it's easy to build tons of cheap low-quality wind or solar generation, but it's not economic to build any kind of storage. As a result, Europe is now dependent on natural gas and coal during the winter. And there's nothing that can change that within the next decade.

"Europe" is not a country. France finished it's nuclear build-out decades ago. It's still got issues, but the matter is sorted. The UK is adding scads of wind power every day. Ditto for Spain, only with solar. Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland have mix of hydro, nuclear, and renewables. Yes, Germany is screwing the pooch on this one. Most places east of Germany isn't doing much better. But their failure is the…

>The UK is adding scads of wind power every day.

Yeah about that wind

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/08/what-wen...

Surely if the generation is so cheap why won't anyone commit to more turbines?

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#112

Post by Kbelicius »

londons_explore wrote: post #109
cyberax wrote: post #5

Counterpoint: electricity markets are terrible for reliability. Markets are great, but there are no pricing signals for reliability. You won't know that your grid will collapse at the first strong breeze, until it happens (see: Texas). Theoretically, it can work because companies might invest in reliable generation, in the hopes of getting $$$$$$$$$ when the spot price goes up through the roof. But in practice, prett…

> pretty much nobody wants to wait 5-10 years between "income events". Insurance is a similar market - and big earthquakes might wipe out a whole decades profits. Yet there are still plenty of players in that market.

> Insurance is a similar market - and big earthquakes might wipe out a whole decades profits.

So not similar but reveres. Big earthquake is an "expenditure event" for an insurance company, not an "income event".

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#113

Post by jowea »

mschaef wrote: post #100
vlovich123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren’t the California brownouts caused by Enron fucking with California’s supply to cause them to purchase electricity from Texas at insanely high rates. Also led to Gray Davis being recalled which must have been a nice bonus because the Bush administration was very allied with Enron execs.

> Weren’t the California brownouts caused by Enron fucking with California’s supply to cause them to purchase electricity from Texas at insanely high rates. The Texas grid (ERCOT, specifically) is almost completely isolated, in order to avoid certain Federal level regulations. There's no real way for California or any other state to sell power into Texas or buy power from Texas. Part of what happened with California…

I've been meaning to find some decently in-depth explanation of what market manipulations happened. Found this one: http://www.mresearch.com/pdfs/19.pdf

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#114

Post by [deleted] »

Kbelicius wrote: post #112
londons_explore wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pretty much nobody wants to wait 5-10 years between "income events". Insurance is a similar market - and big earthquakes might wipe out a whole decades profits. Yet there are still plenty of players in that market.

> Insurance is a similar market - and big earthquakes might wipe out a whole decades profits. So not similar but reveres. Big earthquake is an "expenditure event" for an insurance company, not an "income event".

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#115

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

cyberax wrote: post #56
tuukkah wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean there's no way out? Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels, some are making good progress, in some the progress has recently stalled, some haven't really started yet... Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production).

> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…

a lot of the answer here is hydro. currently, hydro is seen primarily as a generation method, but as the amount of solar and wind increase, hydro increasingly becomes an easy way to fill the gap from dips in production. another short term answer is natural gas. if you run a natural gas plant 1 week a year, it's not ideal, but it's still 50x better than running it all the time.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#116

Post by sidewndr46 »

cyberax wrote: post #5

Counterpoint: electricity markets are terrible for reliability. Markets are great, but there are no pricing signals for reliability. You won't know that your grid will collapse at the first strong breeze, until it happens (see: Texas). Theoretically, it can work because companies might invest in reliable generation, in the hopes of getting $$$$$$$$$ when the spot price goes up through the roof. But in practice, prett…

The Texas grid has not suffered any collapses that I am aware of

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#117

Post by ajuc »

cyberax wrote: post #5

Counterpoint: electricity markets are terrible for reliability. Markets are great, but there are no pricing signals for reliability. You won't know that your grid will collapse at the first strong breeze, until it happens (see: Texas). Theoretically, it can work because companies might invest in reliable generation, in the hopes of getting $$$$$$$$$ when the spot price goes up through the roof. But in practice, prett…

I'm not sure about USA but in Poland whoever mispredicted production/consumption - pays for balancing the network back. So there's quite strong incentive for reliable predictions.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#118

Post by dukeyukey »

throwaway50182 wrote: post #107
dukeyukey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically what EU policies that the more renewable-and-nuclear friendly countries voted for do you have in mind?

The EU green deal was specifically anti-nuclear until very recently. What I'm talking about started in 2008 and finished around 2012 (though we're going to be paying for it for many decades).

Yes, it was made pro-nuclear under pressure from France. But even before then, the only countries with more nuclear power than the EU (that aren't also in the EU) are Ukraine (which is on the European grid), Switzerland (also on the European grid), Armenia and South Korea.

Europe's revealed preferences makes it the most pro-nuclear region in the world, by far.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#119

Post by ZeroGravitas »

lysecret wrote: post #10

Electric water heaters have long been in demand response programs, but new upgrades improve their ability to shift energy based on real-time conditions without leaving customers with cold water. Roughly 18% of household energy goes towards water heating, though many buildings still use fuels like natural gas. Would love to hear more on this point. Which companies are doing the integration?

Mixergy is one:

https://mixergy.co.uk/mixergy-tank/

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#120

Post by throwaway50182 »

dukeyukey wrote: post #118
throwaway50182 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU green deal was specifically anti-nuclear until very recently. What I'm talking about started in 2008 and finished around 2012 (though we're going to be paying for it for many decades).

Yes, it was made pro-nuclear under pressure from France. But even before then, the only countries with more nuclear power than the EU (that aren't also in the EU) are Ukraine (which is on the European grid), Switzerland (also on the European grid), Armenia and South Korea. Europe's revealed preferences makes it the most pro-nuclear region in the world, by far.

Wut? Their anti-nuclear policy reveals them as pro-nuclear? What new nuclear was built during the last 2 decades, before they had to change the anti-nuclear policy?

The population is pro-nuclear, sure. But the policy was set by the anti-nuclear supporters of the green deal and we had to wait for many years until reality forced them to accept nuclear.

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