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Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

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Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#121

Post by SoftTalker »

Damogran6 wrote: post #88
rig666 wrote: post #83

I had a friend recently tell me about how his excess power is put back into the grid and how he hopes our area sees negative rates eventually like this. My cynical side was quick to point out that I would fire up my crypto miners if electricity was free for a few hours a day. After talking to him more I realized we both had different take aways from the story of "the tragedy of the commons" I lightened the conversati…

My aging mind can't remember the actual facts but it was determined that when someone has significantly more power than they had a need for (say, full batteries and a whole lot of solar) that it opened up interesting behaviors. We try hard to be as efficient as possible, but when you don't have to, it leads to interesting stuff. (like leave the lights on, leave the windows open with a space heater next to you, etc.)

Yes, mine is when I'm at a hotel I set the AC much cooler than I would at home, and I take really long showers.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#122

Post by pyrale »

guerby wrote: post #90
Neil44 wrote: post #29

This happens frequently in the UK too, if you have a compatible supplier you can set it up to charge your EV or some batteries during negative spikes. Ultimately if enough people were set up that way then prices would not get negative I suppose. * https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

All the analysis I can find talk only about the spot price being negative. But what matters for economics is the volume exchanged at this negative price, that is if you are a buyer with infinite capacity to absorb kWh how much money you'll make yearly? Anyone with a good URL?

Afaik most of the energy is traded otc, spot markets are a tiny fraction of what gets delivered.

But that fraction is still interesting: since p=c must be respected, and there is always some small delta that is hard to predict and has to be covered. The spot price is not relevant to consumer prices, but it is relevant to the cost for energy providers to fine-tune their supply.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#123

Post by Retric »

Herz wrote: post #101
bryanlarsen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it a bit wishful thinking to think that storage will come down in price and nuclear won't? It's been true for 50 years, assuming it will be true for another decade or two is not wishful thinking. > Beyond that, leaving out storage costs, what are the technologies that can cover the world's storage? And in what quantities? Batteries for short term storage and pumped hydro for long term storage. > Because if I…

> It's been true for 50 years, assuming it will be true for another decade or two is not wishful thinking. Well it's one thing though to use the storage for a cell phones and some cars, another to keep all the industries and homes going on. Do you have any data about what you claim? For example in italy of hydro, nothing has been built for decades, everything that could be used has been used. If we want to go further…

> Well it's one thing though to use the storage for a cell phones and some cars, another to keep all the industries and homes going on.

Not really. If all vehicles on the road where 100% PEV’s your looking at ~250 TWh in batteries. 1/5 of that would be ~50TWh.

Global electricity demand is about 70 TWh per day. You don’t need 70 TWh worth of storage if daily production is > daily demand. It all comes down to which is cheaper, extra storage or extra generating capacity. However ~25 TWh of storage is likely sufficient for a grid equally stable as what we have today. (100% EV’s would increase that 70TWh/day but that’s offset by charging them when power is cheap.)

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#124

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #26

What I never understood was how France gets 70-75% of their electricity from Nuclear, yet their energy prices aren't "too cheap to meter", and while cheaper than their neighbors, don't really raise any eyebrows. Wouldn't this be a major example of why Nuclear is NOT the future?

Why would any commercial energy producer, of any variety (nuclear, coal, solar, wind, etc), put money into building excess capacity to the point that the marginal profit of extra production is zero?

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#125

Post by Damogran6 »

Herz wrote: post #114
Damogran6 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other storage technologies being fielded...they haven't been popular because their energy densities are low...but if you have a 2000 lb hunk of Iron Aire battery next to your house, who cares? ( https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42532492/ir... )

Do you have any idea how long it takes for a technology at a research stage to enter scale production and be commercially viable?

I don't have my eye on these technologies (there were at least two that I've run across that were REALLY HEAVY), so I can't tell you how close they are to production. But every bit helps and the amazing pouch batteries in your laptop weren't developed overnight... 18650 batteries are astounding compared to the Eveready Alkalines of my youth, and available for $3 a piece in quantity.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#126

Post by pyrale »

ragebol wrote: post #99
guerby wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the analysis I can find talk only about the spot price being negative. But what matters for economics is the volume exchanged at this negative price, that is if you are a buyer with infinite capacity to absorb kWh how much money you'll make yearly? Anyone with a good URL?

No URL, but if demand were there to take all that in, the demand would obviously go up. But there is not enough demand, so the capacity is far from infinite. The best fix for negative prices is negative prices, the demand will come. I'm still curious about the actual MWh's traded for negative prices as well

Demand is not that flexible, especially intraday. Negative prices tend to be served by production program adjustments.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#127

Post by jtwaleson »

riffraff wrote: post #35

AFAIK this happens fairly regularly in some northern european countries (NL and DE come to mind) due to wind over-production. The sooner we get cheap grid storage, the better.

I'm in NL and often use this website to check for day-ahead pricing: https://energie.anwb.nl/actuele-tarieven

It's very frequent indeed. I noticed that it's mostly during sunny days in late spring / summer / early fall (solar). Much more rare is randomly at night (stormy days).

Solar is still pretty small in national grid charts, but I suspect that residential solar just reduces demand from the grid and doesn't show up as production.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#128

Post by stoperaticless »

Damogran6 wrote: post #88
rig666 wrote: post #83

I had a friend recently tell me about how his excess power is put back into the grid and how he hopes our area sees negative rates eventually like this. My cynical side was quick to point out that I would fire up my crypto miners if electricity was free for a few hours a day. After talking to him more I realized we both had different take aways from the story of "the tragedy of the commons" I lightened the conversati…

My aging mind can't remember the actual facts but it was determined that when someone has significantly more power than they had a need for (say, full batteries and a whole lot of solar) that it opened up interesting behaviors. We try hard to be as efficient as possible, but when you don't have to, it leads to interesting stuff. (like leave the lights on, leave the windows open with a space heater next to you, etc.)

Name for it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#129

Post by kypro »

Damogran6 wrote: post #88
rig666 wrote: post #83

I had a friend recently tell me about how his excess power is put back into the grid and how he hopes our area sees negative rates eventually like this. My cynical side was quick to point out that I would fire up my crypto miners if electricity was free for a few hours a day. After talking to him more I realized we both had different take aways from the story of "the tragedy of the commons" I lightened the conversati…

My aging mind can't remember the actual facts but it was determined that when someone has significantly more power than they had a need for (say, full batteries and a whole lot of solar) that it opened up interesting behaviors. We try hard to be as efficient as possible, but when you don't have to, it leads to interesting stuff. (like leave the lights on, leave the windows open with a space heater next to you, etc.)

I was told that in Russia nat gas is so cheap that they keep the heating on 24/7 and will often just open windows to regulate temperature. No idea how true this is and whether it just applies to offices / apartment complexes but this is what I was told.

Re: Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

#130

Post by countvonbalzac »

rig666 wrote: post #83

I had a friend recently tell me about how his excess power is put back into the grid and how he hopes our area sees negative rates eventually like this. My cynical side was quick to point out that I would fire up my crypto miners if electricity was free for a few hours a day. After talking to him more I realized we both had different take aways from the story of "the tragedy of the commons" I lightened the conversati…

Is folding at home still relevant after alpha fold?
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