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Consumers In Germany Were Paid To Use Electricity This Holiday Season (inhabitat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the free-energy dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inhabitat: The cost of electricity in Germany has decreased so dramatically in the past few days that major consumers have actually been paid to use power from the grid. While "negative pricing" is not an everyday occurrence in the country, it does occur from time to time, as it did this holiday weekend. This gift to energy consumers is the result of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in renewable energy over the past two decades. This most recent period of negative pricing was a result from warm weather, strong breezes, and the low demand typical of people gathering together to celebrate. Germany's temporary energy surpluses are a result of both low demand and variably high supply. Wind power typically makes up 12 percent of Germany's power consumption on a daily basis. However, on windy days, that percentage can easily multiply several times the average. The older segment of Germany's energy portfolio, such as coal plants, are not able to lower output quickly enough. Thus, there is a glut of electricity. On Sunday, Christmas Eve, major energy consumers, such as factory owners, were being paid more than 50 euros (~$60) per megawatt-hour consumed. Further reading: The New York Times

10 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Germans pay more for power than almost every other Western country. That fact was conveniently left out of the push piece in the submitted story.

    1. Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by Klaxton · · Score: 5, Informative

      The wholesale price of electricity in Germany is about the same as the rest of Europe. Residential electric bills are mostly taxes and fees. You conveniently left that fact out.

    2. Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by atomicalgebra · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not only does Germany pay more, they pollute more. Germany has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars, and they are still **10x dirtier** then France. Any way you put it Germanys energiewende is a failure . Here is a second source And here is a previous slashdot story about it.

    3. Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Residential electric bills are mostly taxes and fees. You conveniently left that fact out.

      You're not helping your case by mentioning taxes and fees. Roughly half of those taxes and fees directly subsidizes green energy. Much of Europe is heading down a similar path as you mentioned.

    4. Re: Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bingo. French bills look low, but actually when you factor in the tax diverted to EDF and the other French energy companies, it's insanely expensive.

      The French got fed up with it and it nearly bankrupted EDF. They were saved by ripping off other countries, e.g. the UK where they are getting all the usual subsidies plus a guaranteed ultra high price per MWh and Chinese investment. Yeah, a critical part of the UK power supply is owned by the French and Chinese, and we are paying them handsomely for the privilege.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West by Uecker · · Score: 4, Informative

      You are right that Germany pollutes more than France (but don't judge too quickly: CO2 per capita is still far lower than for the US). It was a mistake to first shut down existing nuclear plants instead of coal. But this does not imply that the energy transition with its push towards renewables has failed. Only the effect on coal and CO2 has been delayed. But in 2017 you can already clearly see how renewables start to cut also into lignite and coal:

      lignite 155.1 (2007) 148.0 (2017)
      coal 142.0 (2007) 94.2 (2017)
      nuclear 140.5 (2007) 75.9 (2017)
      renewables 88.3 (2007) 216.6 (2017)
      net exports 19.1 (2007) 54.0 (2017)
      numbers in TWh, source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen...

      Just by looking at the actual numbers, one can easily see how many statements about the energy transition you can find in the internet a completely wrong. I can only recommend to look at actual numbers and build your own opinion.

  2. Re:Nothing to do with renewables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually the conditions for coal cannot be repeated naturally. Coal formed before microbes evolved the ability to break down the hard cellulose of trees. This is long before terminates as well, which broke down trees in forests. Theoretically some coal can still form in the existing peat bogs, but new peat bogs cannot be formed either.

  3. Re: This is in continental Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The grid most certainly is interconnected as Germany usually gets a substantial amount of electricity from the French. But France was probably also consuming little electricity on Christmas Eve. And the grid can only transfer so much electricity anyway.

  4. Re: How does anyone even find this out at the time by CGordy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pumped hydro installations. They "buy" excess energy and then sell back into the grid when prices are high.

  5. Re:Nothing to do with renewables by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which is where Tesla's coming in with their massive battery installations.

    Batteries are very expensive for grid storage. A better option is to widen the grid, so a peak in one area can fill in a trough in other areas.