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

fortune.com

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

#81

Post by throw0101c »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52
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?

> Wouldn't this be a major example of why Nuclear is NOT the future? Not at all. Nobody has really put forth "too cheap to meter" as a rationale for nuclear for 50 years or more. The issue is that nuclear is currently the only reliable base load generation technology that doesn't produce carbon (except perhaps hydro for reasonable definitions of "reliable"). The other top technologies either produce carbon (natural g…

> Not at all. Nobody has really put forth "too cheap to meter" as a rationale for nuclear for 50 years or more.

A history of the phrase, which was originally said in 1954 (seventy years ago):

> Only a few days later, Strauss was a guest on Meet the Press. When the reporters asked him about the quotation and the viability of "commercial power from atomic piles," Strauss replied that he expected his children and grandchildren would have power "too cheap to be metered, just as we have water today that's too cheap to be metered."[4]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter

It was never meant to be taken as $0:

For a long time water was paid for in a flat rate, and one could certainly envisage where electricity was the same: the power company would pick some kind of median/average to charge folks.. Of course most folks have metered water/sewage nowadays, and so metered electricity is less strange.

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

#82

Post by bryanlarsen »

serial_dev wrote: post #77
EcommerceFlow wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard for years that if we just had "tons" of Nuclear plants, our energy costs would essentially be too cheap to meter. Yet France is not experiencing this even at 75% Nuclear.

As far as I know and even learned as a (since failed) physicist, a country needs a good mixture of energy sources. Mind you I went to a university that's nuclear energy focused and even they didn't advocate for full on only nuclear. In my opinion, if someone says we should just have all nuclear, it means they are dealing in absolutes, maybe God in politics and debate, but they ignore that reality is much more complic…

Nuclear is very poor for baseline requirements. Baseline requirements should be met by the cheapest source and more expensive sources should only be added as required to follow demand.

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

#83

Post by rig666 »

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 conversation up by informing him he could do folding from home for a few hours to make sure his excess power went to a noble cause & thwart my zero sum approach.

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

#84

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jerf wrote: post #38
paulsutter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative prices make storage very practical

Unfortunately you've got a massive term mismatch. You have negative prices today, but a lot of reason to believe that by the time you could bring your storage online the problem will already have resolved itself. Oil briefly went negative a few years ago. If you decided to build a storage business dependent on negative oil prices for profit, you might just be coming online around now, and very much poorer than you we…

The oil situation is not analogous. It's not like solar prices going negative are something that is difficult to predict, or the result of things like "black swan" geopolitical events. Once we build out enough solar we should be having negative prices literally every sunny day - of course, the hope is that enough storage comes online then to mop up that excess generation so prices don't go negative.

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

#85

Post by gwervc »

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?

Because the price of electricity is (unfairly) based on gas price by EU regulations, imposed by Germany. One of the propositions of one party running for the next election is to renegotiate this so we can use our cheap electricity as the competitive advantage it is.

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

#87

Post by yodelshady »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #5

This was very surprising and positive. I had expected pain for the electricity market in France since EDF "lost" the uranium mines in Niger and replaced it by shipping uranium from canada/australia. So it looks like solar and wind have more than compensated for the nuclear power shortages. The olympic games will put this news to test and I guess we will find out soon if this news is indeed true.

"..the grid operator to request that Electricite de France SA take several nuclear plants offline."

Could you read the article please?

The lumbering beasts, which actually do hate changing output at all, turned off before the renewables.

Secondly, another below comment already explains that no, there's not a shortage.

Thirdly, please for f*ks sake, engage your brain and think what the impact of 700 euros a month (high in 2022) to negative prices now has on industry. What the everloving ** do I charge my customers?

Maybe this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40679507

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

#88

Post by Damogran6 »

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.)

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

#89

Post by djmips »

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 a good use of computing resources and power? Do they have any wins?

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

#90

Post by guerby »

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?

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