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

Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 451 posts

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#291

Post by Johnny555 »

bob1029 wrote: post #54
bombcar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressive pricing exists for commercial users but in general has been too complicated for home users.

I think we need to figure out how to de-complicate variable rates for residential customers. Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more responsive. During the Texas winter crisis, virtually no residential customers saw a financial incentive to wind down power usage. Only those crazies on Griddy, et. al. were impacted.

Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more responsive.

That's only a valid strategy if your customers can be more responsive, but in a freak cold snap where most customers are running heaters at 100% to keep their homes habitable, there's little they can go to reduce demand.

Many people have purchased generators after that crisis, but telling (and maybe subsidizing) millions of people to buy a generator and stockpile fuel because the grid can't handle cold weather is not good energy policy.

It'd be better if regulators required demand-response automation that would let them intelligently scale back demand of high-energy appliances before the grid reaches critical levels without heavy-handed rolling blackouts.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#292

Post by gergov »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #57
mardifoufs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do comments like these only pop up on articles that highlight problems in europe? I never see them in the hundreds of articles per month that focus on the US. It's weird because that is exactly the type of comment you used to read from fragile patriotic americans that were unable to handle any criticism back in the early 2000s, but this time from europeans.

Because social media is currently under MASSIVE attack from Russian trolls. And then there are people doing it for free, because their are easily manipulated or because they think they’d benefit from Russian puppets taking over their country… I wonder on which side you are.

just because we are kind of worried about the winter even with IT wages doesn't make us russian bots?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#293

Post by sofixa »

retinaros wrote: post #219
sofixa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because macron wanted to go away from nuclear five year ago Source? The plan was to reduce nuclear share to ~50%, not "go away from nuclear", which still required building a ton of new reactors to replace those close to their end of life. Furthermore, the nuclear reactors are owned and operated by EDF, which has always been majority state owned and is in the process of being renationalisated. Shareholders were neve…

tomorrow your boss says to you he’s gonna reduce headcount in IT by 50%. what is your boss gonna do short term? is he gonna plan how he is gonna manage your promotion when you will be one of the few not fired or is he gonna focus on firing the 50% he needs so that shareholders are happy with stock price?

Not reduce by 50%, reduce to 50% from the current 50%. With the increasing electric consumption, it's barely a reduction in real terms at all.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#294

Post by nicoburns »

bombcar wrote: post #21
sschueller wrote: post #8

Here is what Switzerland is doing at the moment to prevent the worst case which would be rolling black outs. They are planning for the worst case so they don't get caught with their pants down. This includes: - Currently trying to fill as many reservoirs as possible - Securing gas in foreign reservoirs. - Plan for emergency gas plants that can be operational by January/February, the time Switzerland has the least ele…

I wonder if it is cost effective going forward to install two meters and panels on every house with one being “essential” and the other being “intermittent” so the power company has the option of blacking out the intermittent boxes only. I’d rather have all my computers, lights, etc shut down than my whole house.

I think this is happening. Except, instead of two separate meters they are instead installing "smart meters" which can do this and much more.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#295

Post by nicoburns »

cperciva wrote: post #158
bitschubser_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't it much "easier" to implement some kind of progressive price on energy? first 1000kw/h are "cheaper" than market (per person in household), next 500kw/h double the price, next 500kw/h doubles again etc... For things like heatpumps you usually have an extra meter with special day/night tarifs (in germany), the rest is metered as general consumption. I always wonder through how much energy my peers burn, we have…

BC does that for electricity, but there's talk of getting rid of it -- because it punishes people for using electric cars and heat pumps. Great for reducing electricity consumption; not great for reducing total energy usage .

You could design a pricing scheme that takes this into account:

- Make it for all energy use, not just electricity

- Give an extra allowance for electric car owners

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#296

Post by qalmakka »

koheripbal wrote: post #124
qalmakka wrote: post #78

The situation in Italy is bleak - due to widespread NIMBY-ism it's basically impossible to build anything. Even hooking up a LNG FSRU temporarily in an emergency situation like the current one is a monumental feat of burocracy and fighting against everyone and everything. There's a non zero chance that, together with the inevitable far right government that will come out of today's elections, the country will collaps…

Russia is going to capitalize on this and the current EU/NATO consensus on the Ukraine conflict will collapse. This winter is going to be a very volatile time.

It would be pointless for Russia to rest their hopes on Italy to break NATO and EU unity - Meloni got fiercely pro-USA recently, and unless a miracle happens, Salvini is heading towards a total defeat tonight and is all but finished, same goes for Berlusconi.

Also, it would be pointless for Italy to go against Europe just to get more Russian gas - because in all likelihood it would never happen in the first place. Russia can tempt Germany to leave Ukraine in the dust and open North Stream 2, but Italy gets its Russian gas through a pipeline that goes through Ukraine, Austria and Slovenia - anyone but a fool would think that the Ukranians would let the Italians get away with that. Ukraine can cut Italy's supply in an instant if they want.

Italy needs LNG regasification capacity, and it needs it now. The only way to get it if FSRUs don't go online in the next few months is through the existing pipeline from the Netherlands.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#297

Post by toast0 »

Someone wrote: post #283
kennend3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Charge higher rates for essential. This makes ZERO sense.. I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under your plan we should pay more for this? And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government rebates, making a complex program even more complex? Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed from the start.

You can also write “Charge higher rates for essential” as “Offer cheaper electricity that has lower quality of service guarantees”. If seen that way, you wouldn’t pay more; you would have to he choice to get cheaper electricity. I foresee high demand for electronics that seamlessly switch from the lower quality of service feed to the ‘essential’ one when that cheaper feed stops working, though.

You could have tarrif rules that the essential meter charges at the regular rate if the regular meter is energized, or near the regular rate. That would have the benefit of letting the power utility accurately forecast the essential load, and would disincentivize the transfer switches.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#298

Post by derefr »

toast0 wrote: post #285
kennend3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Charge higher rates for essential. This makes ZERO sense.. I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under your plan we should pay more for this? And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government rebates, making a complex program even more complex? Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed from the start.

It would make sense to have say your stage 1 heating that could keep your house livable but rather cold on essential, and your stage 2 heating which made things comfortable on the less available feed. I'd also put refrigerators and minimal lighting on essential. The alternative as presented was some sort of compliance program hoping people wouldn't just run everything off the 'essential' feed regardless of need, or r…

> It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much more value to you and others, but you're not willing to pay the value?

In a similar sense that I'm not willing to pay more for "essential" food than for luxury food; or in the same sense that it seems unfair to have to pay for life-saving medical treatments.

It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic demand — the whole meaning of the word "inelastic" being that changing the price of it won't incentivize people to use any more/less of it.

Inelastic demand should, at the very least, be subsidized. This is why public healthcare exists; why food stamps exist; etc. But better yet, inelastic demand — because it is so predictable — should be optimized heavily for by suppliers (for power plants, this is "building out base-load capacity") such that economies of scale enable the supply for inelastic demand to be satisfied with lower cost than the supply for elastic demand.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#299

Post by kennend3 »

toast0 wrote: post #285
kennend3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Charge higher rates for essential. This makes ZERO sense.. I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under your plan we should pay more for this? And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government rebates, making a complex program even more complex? Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed from the start.

It would make sense to have say your stage 1 heating that could keep your house livable but rather cold on essential, and your stage 2 heating which made things comfortable on the less available feed. I'd also put refrigerators and minimal lighting on essential. The alternative as presented was some sort of compliance program hoping people wouldn't just run everything off the 'essential' feed regardless of need, or r…

> It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much more value to you and others, but you're not willing to pay the value?

what does taking what i wrote, then reworking the sentence to suit your purpose serve?

I did not agree that essential loads have more "value"... you did.

If you think that heating your home is not essential, come by in the winter and i can put a tent in the back yard for you. It reaches as low as -24C, but i'm sure you will be fine.

If you think that people should be forced to pay more to heat their homes.. you are mistaken. No one should have to choose between food and heat and any program structured such that "essential costs more" will NEVER work.

I said that it is UNFAIR to charge more for essential loads, and that if a program depends on "rebates" it is flawed.

There are many other alternative solutions, such as what we have here via "time of use" billing that is also seasonally adjusted.

this "pay more for essential services" logic is severely flawed, much as you twisting my words to suit your purpose was.

the persons below really made the point when they wrote "It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic demand "

what you are proposing is unethical...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#300

Post by quickthrowman »

bombcar wrote: post #161
elric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've got your units mixed up. 100A @ 120V = 12kW. Assuming the newer homes are 200A, that would be 24kW. 166kW seems ... unreasonable, especially over 120V, that's like 1400A. Toasty.

Ah I found 200 amps at 220 threephase which is still a bit more than most houses.

Your math was still off, 200 amps at 220v three-phase is ~76.2 kW.

200*220*sqrt(3)=76210 watts

Post reply on HN