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

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

Comments

Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[Klaxton]

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.

Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[atomicalgebra]

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.

Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[AmiMoJo]

It's only a failure of you selectively compare it to France, a country with a lot of really expensive and extremely heavily subsidised nuclear power. In fact it's so expensive that the French don't want it any more, leaving their energy companies to start leaching off other countries like the UK.

Germany started in a poor position. It's half way through its transition, so any proclamation of failure is premature. It's reduced its coal consumption, massively increased renewables, and built up a huge new industry with jobs and wealth.

Oh, and done something good for the planet too.

What is the alternative? Throw even more money at a dying technology like nuclear?

Re: Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West

[Uecker]

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.

Re:Nothing to do with renewables

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Nothing to do with renewables

[ShanghaiBill]

There appears to be a fungus that also breaks down lignum developing and essentially ending the carboniferous age - or at least the coal forming part of it.

The carboniferous age lasted about 60 million years, from 360 Mya to 300 Mya, and during that time a lot of undigested wood turned into coal. Enough CO2 was sucked out of the atmosphere to trigger a major ice age.

A fungus finally figured out how to digest lignin, in a process described by biochemists as "untying a knot with a flamethrower". The same process is still used by fungi today, pretty much unaltered. By stopping the carbon-and-ice death spiral, these little fungi saved the planet. Without them, even the dinosaurs would have never existed. If you want to show your gratitude, go to a Chinese restaurant and order some "mu er" (wood ear). Some people think they are slimy and don't care for the taste, while others (including me) love'em. But while you are chewing, remember that you wouldn't even exist without the little critters.

Re:Nothing to do with renewables

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Misleading

[Freischutz]

The ultimate test will be of energy prices in the US fall dramatically due to Trump's anti-environmental polices.

The real test of all of this has actually happened in the Gulf. The Arabs are actually pumping oil and gas around with solar power because it is cheaper than generating electricity by burning gas, so they stopped burning gas, sold it off and pocketed the difference... that's writing on a wall, ... large amounts of wall street money moving into renewables is writing on a wall. You'll know renewables are winning when the average price of solar & wind per kWh dips below that of gas in Europe and N-America and it is about to do that (according to Bloomberg it already is). What you are seeing in those graphs is the natural gas and coal industries with their ever increasing extraction costs at war with renewables and their ever decreasing production prices due to ever increasing economy of scale and it was Germany who played a large part in setting that off with it's Energiewende. Form the point of view of a renewables enthusiast the fun is only beginning now. Germany and China are going to be the biggest players in the renewables techology scene and from their point of view Donald Trump and his presidency is a 4-8 year grace period to leave their American competitors behind as they struggle to defend themselves against Trump's efforts to put them out of business. Just watching the US delegations show up at these energy technology and climate conferences and giving presentations about how coal and gas are the future are regarded as comedy performances, people are actually laughing at these people.