7 ms·

Being dependent on imported gas seems like an inherent issue of the German energy system.

by cwp 5y ago

garmaine 5y ago
Heating is largely natural gas based, so it's not substitutive. I don't think Germany should be shutting down its nuclear reactors, but that has nothing to do with Russian gas. (Unless perhaps they started making synthetic methane using the heat of a nuclear reactor, which is not a terrible idea but not something they are currently doing AFAIK.)
- chris_va 5y ago
  To be fair, residential/commercial heating could be entirely electric, and heat pumps have additional benefits over natural gas heating (like being reversible in the summer). Presumably people would switch if the cost of electricity was low enough for it to be more economical. Decisions that result in the price of electricity staying high provide political leverage to gas producers. Though, eyeballing the numbers, it really should be very attractive to install heat pumps in the EU despite the high electricity cost. The cost of natural gas is quite high.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    This would be very difficult for the grid. Switching to electric heating is a big hurdle.
    - wumpus 5y ago
      Electric heating? Do you mean resistive heating, or heat pumps? It's been difficult in this discussion to figure out what people are saying.
      - OJFord 5y ago
        And when you say resistive, do you mean element within (an electric) boiler, radiators to work as normal, or something more direct, electric radiators/underfloor/etc.? I think it doesn't really matter much what is meant throughout - point was about shifting gas demand on to the electricity supply, and whether the grid could cope with it if everyone did that to a meaningful degree.
        BenjiWiebe 5y ago
        Resistive heating means using 1kw of electricity to get 1kw of heat. Heat pumps use 1kw of electricity to get >1kw heat.
        OJFord 5y ago
        Not necessarily, it's just uncorrelated since it's not what's doing the actual heating. Similarly a gas boiler uses 1kW electricity (for the pump) to get potentially >1kW heat out of radiators (and pipes). Because that heat is energy conserved from the gas, not the electricity. Anyway I didn't mention heat pumps or compare them to resistive heating so I'm not sure what I'm defending.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    In northern countries where the primary need is heating (and there is very little need for cooling), heat pumps at current electricity and gas prices are 2x more expensive per kWh of heat put into the property. They are also about 3x more expensive to install. They only make sense in places that need cooling too, or when electricity gets cheaper.
    - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
      Are those 2019 numbers or 2021 numbers?
      - londons_explore 5y ago
        Numbers from 1 hour ago... From the UK, and assuming UK climate for COP figures. ~True with both retail capped prices, and wholesale market prices. There are still people in the UK installing heat pumps. Either they have a very rose tinted view of the future direction of electricity prices Vs gas, a rose tinted view of future government taxes/incentives, a rose tinted view of the environmental benefits (eg. By looking at aggregate CO2 emissions instead of marginal CO2 emissions), or they have been misled by installers/builders who make substantially more money if they install a heat pump. Either that or I got my maths wrong. But I don't think I did.
        patd 5y ago
        Can you expand on the aggregate CO2 vs marginal CO2 part ? I’m looking into installing a ground heat pump in a new house (coupled with solar panels) mostly for environmental reasons and all the critics I’ve read so far were about the costs.
        londons_explore 5y ago
        If you turn on a light and use some extra electricity, some power station somewhere will need to increase power output to provide for you. It's the CO2 production of that extra generation, known as marginal generation, you should care about, not the nationwide average. Most of the time, in most of the world, that extra generation is combined cycle gas turbines at ~50% efficiency. For most people, the only time a new use of electricity is eco-friendly is when all the energy in a country is already supplied by wind/solar/hydro, and therefore a newly switched on thing also gets supplied by wind/solar/hydro. Obviously the decision to installation a heat pump depends on the marginal generation in 15 years when you are still using that heat pump. That's very hard to predict.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  In Sweden natural gas is hardly used yet electricity prices have gone up astronomically compared to last year - daily rates are now around 10 to 20 times what they were last year around the same time. Heating in Sweden is a combination of electric (resistive elements and heat pumps), wood in some form (firewood, pellets, wood chips), some oil and process heat from industry where available. The Swedish equivalent of the German Greens is proudly proclaiming they're the ones who have closed nuclear power plants long before their calculated lifetime was out, leading to an increased need for electricity imports from e.g. Poland (mostly coal-fired plants). Their "green" policy has led to oil-fired power plants which normally only come online in the deep of winter to be fired up in summer to prevent brown-outs.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    It's amazing. How many so-called zero emissions cars will be running on lignite next year? Oh, I give up.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      Not that many. Power from Poland or Germany is not that common in Sweden, Sweden exports most of the time. It can happen during periods of low winds, but it's not that frequent.
      - hagbard_c 5y ago
        It has become far more frequent than it used to after the closure of Ringhals 1 and Barsebäck, two nuclear power plants in the south of Sweden. The power grid in Sweden is designed to take electricity produced mostly by hydroelectric plants in the north and middle and nuclear in the south. The closure of those nuclear plants in the south has led to an imbalance, especially given the increase in power use in the south. To make matters worse the "government" - between quotes here because they hardly deserve that term - allowed the establishment of several data centres by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google, each of which consumes enough electricity to make it impossible for other industry to be established in the same area given the limits of the distribution network. To make things even worse those data centres got a really sweet deal on electricity, they're not paying all the taxes and surcharges which other consumers and industry have to. In return they provide a couple of dozen jobs, each of which was subsidised by the Swedish state (in addition to the mentioned deal on electricity) to the tune of 2.5 million SEK (around $275.000,-). Here's some more choice words on the failures of the current Swedish energy policy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/02/28/irrational-nuclear-fear-puts-sweden-in-danger-of-succumbing-to-stupidity/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/02/28/irrationa...
- vrepsys 5y ago
  It has to do with gas, because 12% of electricity in Germany is produced by burning natural gas. That's up by 4pp from 2018. That's according to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany
- diordiderot 5y ago
  Electricity absolutely, unarguably, is a substitute for gas.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Not when your building's central heating is done by a natural gas furnace. Not without expensive retrofitting. (Which should be done. But it'll take time.)
    - dispat0r 5y ago
      It should be done, but that's almost impossible. Retro fitting to a heat pump is very expensive, you have to replace all radiators with underfloor heating and the insulation has to be redone. While this is done, you can't live in your home.
      - diordiderot 5y ago
        How can you say this so confidently when it's not true. There are electric boilers... Radiators are heated by boilers... No heat pump necessary...
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    You act like everyone can just miraculously pay for an entirely new HVAC system on the spur of a moment?
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      HVAC in Europe is, relative to America, non-existent Edit: hyperbole ^
- enaaem 5y ago
  Gas is used for both heating and electricity. If less gas is needed for electricity heating costs will go down.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Or using reactor waste heat to heat houses.

Being dependent on imported gas seems like an inherent issue of the German energy system.

by cwp 5y ago

Being dependent on imported gas seems like an inherent issue of the German energy system.

Heating is largely natural gas based, so it's not substitutive. I don't think Germany should be shutting down its nuclear reactors, but that has nothing to do with Russian gas. (Unless perhaps they started making synthetic methane using the heat of a nuclear reactor, which is not a terrible idea but not something they are currently doing AFAIK.)

chris_va 5y ago
To be fair, residential/commercial heating could be entirely electric, and heat pumps have additional benefits over natural gas heating (like being reversible in the summer). Presumably people would switch if the cost of electricity was low enough for it to be more economical. Decisions that result in the price of electricity staying high provide political leverage to gas producers. Though, eyeballing the numbers, it really should be very attractive to install heat pumps in the EU despite the high electricity cost. The cost of natural gas is quite high.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  This would be very difficult for the grid. Switching to electric heating is a big hurdle.
  - wumpus 5y ago
    Electric heating? Do you mean resistive heating, or heat pumps? It's been difficult in this discussion to figure out what people are saying.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      And when you say resistive, do you mean element within (an electric) boiler, radiators to work as normal, or something more direct, electric radiators/underfloor/etc.? I think it doesn't really matter much what is meant throughout - point was about shifting gas demand on to the electricity supply, and whether the grid could cope with it if everyone did that to a meaningful degree.
      - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
        Resistive heating means using 1kw of electricity to get 1kw of heat. Heat pumps use 1kw of electricity to get >1kw heat.
        OJFord 5y ago
        Not necessarily, it's just uncorrelated since it's not what's doing the actual heating. Similarly a gas boiler uses 1kW electricity (for the pump) to get potentially >1kW heat out of radiators (and pipes). Because that heat is energy conserved from the gas, not the electricity. Anyway I didn't mention heat pumps or compare them to resistive heating so I'm not sure what I'm defending.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  In northern countries where the primary need is heating (and there is very little need for cooling), heat pumps at current electricity and gas prices are 2x more expensive per kWh of heat put into the property. They are also about 3x more expensive to install. They only make sense in places that need cooling too, or when electricity gets cheaper.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    Are those 2019 numbers or 2021 numbers?
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      Numbers from 1 hour ago... From the UK, and assuming UK climate for COP figures. ~True with both retail capped prices, and wholesale market prices. There are still people in the UK installing heat pumps. Either they have a very rose tinted view of the future direction of electricity prices Vs gas, a rose tinted view of future government taxes/incentives, a rose tinted view of the environmental benefits (eg. By looking at aggregate CO2 emissions instead of marginal CO2 emissions), or they have been misled by installers/builders who make substantially more money if they install a heat pump. Either that or I got my maths wrong. But I don't think I did.
      - patd 5y ago
        Can you expand on the aggregate CO2 vs marginal CO2 part ? I’m looking into installing a ground heat pump in a new house (coupled with solar panels) mostly for environmental reasons and all the critics I’ve read so far were about the costs.
        londons_explore 5y ago
        If you turn on a light and use some extra electricity, some power station somewhere will need to increase power output to provide for you. It's the CO2 production of that extra generation, known as marginal generation, you should care about, not the nationwide average. Most of the time, in most of the world, that extra generation is combined cycle gas turbines at ~50% efficiency. For most people, the only time a new use of electricity is eco-friendly is when all the energy in a country is already supplied by wind/solar/hydro, and therefore a newly switched on thing also gets supplied by wind/solar/hydro. Obviously the decision to installation a heat pump depends on the marginal generation in 15 years when you are still using that heat pump. That's very hard to predict.
hagbard_c 5y ago
In Sweden natural gas is hardly used yet electricity prices have gone up astronomically compared to last year - daily rates are now around 10 to 20 times what they were last year around the same time. Heating in Sweden is a combination of electric (resistive elements and heat pumps), wood in some form (firewood, pellets, wood chips), some oil and process heat from industry where available. The Swedish equivalent of the German Greens is proudly proclaiming they're the ones who have closed nuclear power plants long before their calculated lifetime was out, leading to an increased need for electricity imports from e.g. Poland (mostly coal-fired plants). Their "green" policy has led to oil-fired power plants which normally only come online in the deep of winter to be fired up in summer to prevent brown-outs.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  It's amazing. How many so-called zero emissions cars will be running on lignite next year? Oh, I give up.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    Not that many. Power from Poland or Germany is not that common in Sweden, Sweden exports most of the time. It can happen during periods of low winds, but it's not that frequent.
    - hagbard_c 5y ago
      It has become far more frequent than it used to after the closure of Ringhals 1 and Barsebäck, two nuclear power plants in the south of Sweden. The power grid in Sweden is designed to take electricity produced mostly by hydroelectric plants in the north and middle and nuclear in the south. The closure of those nuclear plants in the south has led to an imbalance, especially given the increase in power use in the south. To make matters worse the "government" - between quotes here because they hardly deserve that term - allowed the establishment of several data centres by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google, each of which consumes enough electricity to make it impossible for other industry to be established in the same area given the limits of the distribution network. To make things even worse those data centres got a really sweet deal on electricity, they're not paying all the taxes and surcharges which other consumers and industry have to. In return they provide a couple of dozen jobs, each of which was subsidised by the Swedish state (in addition to the mentioned deal on electricity) to the tune of 2.5 million SEK (around $275.000,-). Here's some more choice words on the failures of the current Swedish energy policy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/02/28/irrational-nuclear-fear-puts-sweden-in-danger-of-succumbing-to-stupidity/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/02/28/irrationa...
vrepsys 5y ago
It has to do with gas, because 12% of electricity in Germany is produced by burning natural gas. That's up by 4pp from 2018. That's according to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany
diordiderot 5y ago
Electricity absolutely, unarguably, is a substitute for gas.
- garmaine 5y ago
  Not when your building's central heating is done by a natural gas furnace. Not without expensive retrofitting. (Which should be done. But it'll take time.)
  - dispat0r 5y ago
    It should be done, but that's almost impossible. Retro fitting to a heat pump is very expensive, you have to replace all radiators with underfloor heating and the insulation has to be redone. While this is done, you can't live in your home.
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      How can you say this so confidently when it's not true. There are electric boilers... Radiators are heated by boilers... No heat pump necessary...
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  You act like everyone can just miraculously pay for an entirely new HVAC system on the spur of a moment?
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    HVAC in Europe is, relative to America, non-existent Edit: hyperbole ^
enaaem 5y ago
Gas is used for both heating and electricity. If less gas is needed for electricity heating costs will go down.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Or using reactor waste heat to heat houses.