If you are asking yourself why prices in Germany are so high: It's mostly the price surge of natural gas after Russia cut off deliveries in retaliation to sanctions in the wake of the war against Ukraine. About 50% of the price per kw/h in Germany is set by an auction system. Electricity providers are bidding at any given point in time to provide energy for the grid. The lowest price per kw/h wins. BUT: because no on…
Germany wasn’t exactly known for having reasonably priced electricity before Ukraine though.
If you are asking yourself why prices in Germany are so high: It's mostly the price surge of natural gas after Russia cut off deliveries in retaliation to sanctions in the wake of the war against Ukraine. About 50% of the price per kw/h in Germany is set by an auction system. Electricity providers are bidding at any given point in time to provide energy for the grid. The lowest price per kw/h wins. BUT: because no on…
> all bids that are necessary to satisfy the demand are considered and the final price is set by the most expensive bid within that range
What’s the logic here? Why not just accept bids in order of ascending price until demand is met?
They werent that many to begin with they growing increasingly expensive to run, were coming to the end of their lifespan and Fukushima was a risk that was hard to ignore. It's interesting how Poland's electricity mix has been 80% coal for decades and this passes without comment, but what really enrages some people is a few nuclear power plants in Germany being mostly swapped out with solar and wind energy. Doesnt see…
Poland's coal use is also a huge problem. However, they don't receive as much comment because Germany is richer, so more able to afford cleaner energy sources, and Poland wasn't ignorant and short-sighted about using Russian natural gas.
Poland is actually going to build nuclear power plants soon.
In ten years, Poland‘s electricity mix will be much cleaner than Germany‘s.
If you are asking yourself why prices in Germany are so high: It's mostly the price surge of natural gas after Russia cut off deliveries in retaliation to sanctions in the wake of the war against Ukraine. About 50% of the price per kw/h in Germany is set by an auction system. Electricity providers are bidding at any given point in time to provide energy for the grid. The lowest price per kw/h wins. BUT: because no on…
I would add that part of the difference is service level between the US and Germany. In Germany the outages are far less frequent and for a lot less time.
If you are asking yourself why prices in Germany are so high: It's mostly the price surge of natural gas after Russia cut off deliveries in retaliation to sanctions in the wake of the war against Ukraine. About 50% of the price per kw/h in Germany is set by an auction system. Electricity providers are bidding at any given point in time to provide energy for the grid. The lowest price per kw/h wins. BUT: because no on…
No, the main reason is Germany shutting down nuclear power plants and replacing them with fossil fuels. I know that lots of people will argue that wind and solar will lower electricity prices, but since these don’t provide reliable baseload, Germany needs to have lots of fossile power plants in standby. These doubled structures make the whole system inefficient and expensive.
This isn’t the reason prices are higher. Even if Germany was using nuclear for most electricity, there’s a ton of gas being used in the industry and in homes (like for heating). Using non-nuclear power surely makes things a little more expensive, but it’s definitely not the reason prices are higher than (supposedly) anywhere else in the world.
You describe the auction system as a bad thing. But actually it's a good thing. The providers who (through investment and/or technological superiority) are able to provide cheaper electricity, make more money. Capitalist progress engine at its finest!
I don't think I provided any judgement whatsoever, I just described how it works and the effects it had in this specific situation. Both are correct as I described them, to the best of my knowledge. If you are interested in my opinion, I'm perfectly willing to accept that this kind of auction system works efficiently and effectively under normal circumstances. But in this specific scenario, it led to consumer prices…
The problem aren’t the gas plants, the problem is the insufficient amount of cheap electricity on the market.
Wind and PV heavily rely on backup power plants. So building a lot of wind and PV increases the reliance on gas plants instead of reducing it.
Even the government’s own energy agency "DENA" makes this claim.
If you are asking yourself why prices in Germany are so high: It's mostly the price surge of natural gas after Russia cut off deliveries in retaliation to sanctions in the wake of the war against Ukraine. About 50% of the price per kw/h in Germany is set by an auction system. Electricity providers are bidding at any given point in time to provide energy for the grid. The lowest price per kw/h wins. BUT: because no on…
> all bids that are necessary to satisfy the demand are considered and the final price is set by the most expensive bid within that range What’s the logic here? Why not just accept bids in order of ascending price until demand is met?
Because then everyone with cheap production starts bluffing and bidding 19.99 cents and the end result is the same price but now the market is deceptive and unstable.
Where oh where do these figures come from? UK. I pay toda, domestic tariff, USD 0.42 per pKWh. Plus 5% Vat. That ignores the Standing Charge of USD 0. 56 per day connection charges, plus Vat at 5%.
Yeah, the table in the article doesn't match the dataset they're quoting from.
Is the price in Germany so high because they made the somewhat rash decision to shut down their existing nuclear generation and move back to fossil fuels? Given their location in the world I'm guessing both solar and wind are marginal producers.
One little thing that stuck out: The USA leads the way in terms of household electric usage in the world – an average US household consumes approximately 975 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month, three times more than for example the United Kingdom. Which got me wondering how big US domiciles are versus those in the UK. Turns out: lot of big-ass houses here in the US. https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-…
I am curious about quintile statistics, or at least median. Domiciles are definitely bigger in the US, but I bet the mean average is dragged way up by the top 20% of houses.
Air conditioning also uses the most electricity in a house, and the US has a lot more populated hot and humid regions than many European countries.