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Sweden and Norway has a lot of hydro power. When wind mills in Denmark are running then Norway stops their hydro and imports cheap electricity from the Danish

Sweden and Norway has a lot of hydro power. When wind mills in Denmark are running then Norway stops their hydro and imports cheap electricity from the Danish wind mills. They save up the water. When the Danish wind mills stands still then Norway sells expensive electricity from hydro. Denmark is a very good place for wind mills so the combination is a win-win. It's crazy to look independently at each country because that is not how the electricity market works in Northern Europe. The countries are very interconnected. It just so happends that the wind often blows during the day in Denmark and stand stills during night. So this back and forth happends almost every day. When you ignore hydro power in NO/SE it shows that you don't know anything about the electricity market in Northern Europe.

dzhiurgis 5y ago
Does interconnect serve 100% required capacity? IIRC in a lot of places they are like 10-20% tops.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rekoil 5y ago
It is true that we have a lot of hydro power, however it is pretty much fully utilised as it stands (they're talking about hundreds of additional MW when they talk about expansion, which will not do much in the grand scheme of things), and with all of this additional load, as well as fast ongoing electrification of our vehicles, it seems unlikely that additional wind farms will be able to pick up the slack. Obviously I'm hoping I'm wrong here, because the alternative is nuclear which is apparently still a no-no word in most political circuits over here, and thus is unlikely to happen. Even if nuclear were to happen, ramping it upp will take much longer than the pace of this additional industry and electrification... I'm worried we're going to end up in a crisis where we have to build up capacity quickly, and the only reliable and fast way of doing so is through fossil fuels.
- tmikaeld 5y ago
  According to "Energikommissionen"s research, Swedish hydro could be greatly built out with minimal effects on the environment. [0] (2015 article) https://www.nyteknik.se/opinion/dags-att-bygga-ut-vattenkraften-6344594 https://www.nyteknik.se/opinion/dags-att-bygga-ut-vattenkraf...
  - rekoil 5y ago
    I found that article as well, it cites no numbers, and according to Vattenfall the plan is for an additional 600MW by 2023... Hardly enough given everything discussed here. https://group.vattenfall.com/se/nyheter-och-press/nyheter/2019/600-mw-mer-effekt-i-vattenkraften-2023 https://group.vattenfall.com/se/nyheter-och-press/nyheter/20...
    - tmikaeld 5y ago
      Yes, because I couldn't find the Energikommissionen official publications any more, same goes for net stability documents being removed from government sites (from 2013).
- whizzter 5y ago
  I'm actually cautiously optimistic for once, the MP ("Greens") rage-quit out of the administration opened up for S to skip the MP imposed blockade of the long-term storage decision. If that finally gets done it at least removes some uncertainty if any company wants to start making plans for a new plant (Yes, it's almost idealistically hopeful but the blockade did impose a lot of uncertainty).
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Hydro in general has two metrics that matter. How many MWh can you generate per year (pretty much, how much water falls in a year), and how much MW can you generate at any given moment (ie. How fast can the water come out of the lake at top speed). As the price of electricity varies more and more hour to hour, it becomes worth installing new generators to generate more MW, so you can do all the generation in a short time window to get the best price.
brtkdotse 5y ago
The bottle neck right now is distribution, and building power lines is costly and takes a lot of time because you have to cross peoples properties, plus all the usual NIMBYism.
Loic 5y ago
Denmark is pretty bad with respect to renewables. They have increased their oil consumption in the past years, they have increased the so called "other renewables" which is in fact, burning wastes because they recycle nothing. They are running at 70% on non renewables. So, Denmark is definitely not the Nordic country you want to use as reference[0]. Sweden is a completely different story[1]. [0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-region?stackMode=absolute&country=~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-region?stackMode=absolute&country=~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Burning waste for electricity makes financial/carbon/environmental sense until you have eliminated all fossil fuels from your grid. Denmark has had a reduction in carbon intensity per GDP similar to the EU average, which has brought them close to France and Sweden, who've been low for a while but haven't improved as much over recent times as say Germany. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?end=2018&locations=EU-DK-FR-DE-SE&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?end=2...
  - Retric 5y ago
    Buried waste sequesters carbon, burned waste doesn’t. From a global warming standpoint replacing a low efficiency wasting burning power plant with a much higher efficiency natural gas power plant is a net gain for the environment. Not just is it less CO2 in the atmosphere it’s also less lead, arsenic, etc.
    - bogeholm 5y ago
      Burying waste may sequester carbon, but also potentially creates a host of other environmental issues down the road when stuff starts leaking into the groundwater. Proper incineration + smoke scrubbing is, as far as I know, the best way to eliminate organic (as in chemistry) waste in an environmentally friendly way, eg. PVC.
cm2187 5y ago
France threatened to cut the power to Jersey a few weeks ago, Ukraine faced its own threats from Russia, so I will still look at something as strategic as electricity production along borders. Cross border electricity grids are all good until there is a conflict or a major shortage (remember what happened to EU cooperation on PPE in early 2020 when EU countries were seizing PPE crossing their borders).
- oblio 5y ago
  The odds of Nordic countries fighting each other are astronomically low. Russia was always profiting off Ukraine, while France and the UK have generally been at odds (yes, all those micro-states count as British as far as the French are concerned). The situations you're presenting are not comparable. And regarding PPE, yes, everyone was doing it initially but the rest of the crisis was handled together. If anything, I think the EU received extra powers to be able to handle similar crises in the future.
  - unnah 5y ago
    Just a couple of weeks ago, the energy market disruptions lead Swedish and Norwegian grid operators to put restrictions on cross-border energy transfers, in violation of their co-operation agreements: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-06/europe-s-thirst-for-electricity-spurs-nordic-grid-blockade https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-06/europe-s-...
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    > The odds of Nordic countries fighting each other are astronomically low. War? Sure. Political fights are not that unlikely though. Also, Norway is not part of the EU, so they can sell (or not sell) electricity how they please.
- silvestrov 5y ago
  Denmark and Norway have been a single country/union for more years(290) than United States of America has existed (245). We share so much culture and language that Denmark going to war with Norway would be like New York going to war with Boston.
belorn 5y ago
The Swedish hydro is currently under a lot of pressure. It is overused and need to be reduced in order to prevent extinctions of multiple species. The existing plants are old and need be repaired, and a majority of them has failed the regulative requirement for environmental preservation. Some are arguing that the law need to be changed, possible including EU law, or they won't be economical viable to get them into compliance. As one comment on the news said, it is not viable to dig out new rivers. Someone in Norway could comment if they can expand their capacity, but I suspect the answer is the same there. Hydro is good but its a finite resource, and we now know the effect it has on fish and other animals that need the water to be traversalable. Talking about the energy grid of Sweden, how many know that the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions in south of Sweden is an oil power plant? A country full of hydro and still, that is what tops the charts each year.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > Talking about the energy grid of Sweden, how many know that the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions in south of Sweden is an oil power plant? A country full of hydro and still, that is what tops the charts each year. It's an oil plant, of course it's going to be a big contributor if it's running. Peaker plants are almost always fossil based, especially in regions that do not have hydro like the south of Sweden. Add to that the fact that the electricity demands outside of Sweden make the oil plant profitable from time to time. I think they run it more often ever since 2 of Ringhals reactors closed last year though, but even when they weren't closed I'd expect it to be the biggest contributor. Do you know if that was the case?
  - belorn 5y ago
    What I have read is that the plant operated only for a total of a few days each year before the nuclear reactors was closed down. Karlshamnsverket was built in in 1970, and the south of Sweden had a nuclear plant in Barsebäcks until 2005. It was the combined effect of both Ringhals and Barsebäcks that created the market situation where Karlshamnsverket operates regularly all over the year when ever demand goes up. Given the amount of hydro Sweden have, it is a bit of a black mark on the country that an oil plant actually get to run as much as it does. Its worth noting that Norway doesn't seem to use a lot of oil based peaker plants. I wonder if the oil that get burned in Sweden actually comes from Norway.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

Does interconnect serve 100% required capacity? IIRC in a lot of places they are like 10-20% tops.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rekoil 5y ago

It is true that we have a lot of hydro power, however it is pretty much fully utilised as it stands (they're talking about hundreds of additional MW when they talk about expansion, which will not do much in the grand scheme of things), and with all of this additional load, as well as fast ongoing electrification of our vehicles, it seems unlikely that additional wind farms will be able to pick up the slack. Obviously I'm hoping I'm wrong here, because the alternative is nuclear which is apparently still a no-no word in most political circuits over here, and thus is unlikely to happen. Even if nuclear were to happen, ramping it upp will take much longer than the pace of this additional industry and electrification... I'm worried we're going to end up in a crisis where we have to build up capacity quickly, and the only reliable and fast way of doing so is through fossil fuels.

tmikaeld 5y ago
According to "Energikommissionen"s research, Swedish hydro could be greatly built out with minimal effects on the environment. [0] (2015 article) https://www.nyteknik.se/opinion/dags-att-bygga-ut-vattenkraften-6344594 https://www.nyteknik.se/opinion/dags-att-bygga-ut-vattenkraf...
- rekoil 5y ago
  I found that article as well, it cites no numbers, and according to Vattenfall the plan is for an additional 600MW by 2023... Hardly enough given everything discussed here. https://group.vattenfall.com/se/nyheter-och-press/nyheter/2019/600-mw-mer-effekt-i-vattenkraften-2023 https://group.vattenfall.com/se/nyheter-och-press/nyheter/20...
  - tmikaeld 5y ago
    Yes, because I couldn't find the Energikommissionen official publications any more, same goes for net stability documents being removed from government sites (from 2013).
whizzter 5y ago
I'm actually cautiously optimistic for once, the MP ("Greens") rage-quit out of the administration opened up for S to skip the MP imposed blockade of the long-term storage decision. If that finally gets done it at least removes some uncertainty if any company wants to start making plans for a new plant (Yes, it's almost idealistically hopeful but the blockade did impose a lot of uncertainty).
londons_explore 5y ago
Hydro in general has two metrics that matter. How many MWh can you generate per year (pretty much, how much water falls in a year), and how much MW can you generate at any given moment (ie. How fast can the water come out of the lake at top speed). As the price of electricity varies more and more hour to hour, it becomes worth installing new generators to generate more MW, so you can do all the generation in a short time window to get the best price.

brtkdotse 5y ago

The bottle neck right now is distribution, and building power lines is costly and takes a lot of time because you have to cross peoples properties, plus all the usual NIMBYism.

Loic 5y ago

Denmark is pretty bad with respect to renewables. They have increased their oil consumption in the past years, they have increased the so called "other renewables" which is in fact, burning wastes because they recycle nothing. They are running at 70% on non renewables. So, Denmark is definitely not the Nordic country you want to use as reference[0]. Sweden is a completely different story[1]. [0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-region?stackMode=absolute&country=~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-region?stackMode=absolute&country=~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Burning waste for electricity makes financial/carbon/environmental sense until you have eliminated all fossil fuels from your grid. Denmark has had a reduction in carbon intensity per GDP similar to the EU average, which has brought them close to France and Sweden, who've been low for a while but haven't improved as much over recent times as say Germany. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?end=2018&locations=EU-DK-FR-DE-SE&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?end=2...
- Retric 5y ago
  Buried waste sequesters carbon, burned waste doesn’t. From a global warming standpoint replacing a low efficiency wasting burning power plant with a much higher efficiency natural gas power plant is a net gain for the environment. Not just is it less CO2 in the atmosphere it’s also less lead, arsenic, etc.
  - bogeholm 5y ago
    Burying waste may sequester carbon, but also potentially creates a host of other environmental issues down the road when stuff starts leaking into the groundwater. Proper incineration + smoke scrubbing is, as far as I know, the best way to eliminate organic (as in chemistry) waste in an environmentally friendly way, eg. PVC.

cm2187 5y ago

France threatened to cut the power to Jersey a few weeks ago, Ukraine faced its own threats from Russia, so I will still look at something as strategic as electricity production along borders. Cross border electricity grids are all good until there is a conflict or a major shortage (remember what happened to EU cooperation on PPE in early 2020 when EU countries were seizing PPE crossing their borders).

oblio 5y ago
The odds of Nordic countries fighting each other are astronomically low. Russia was always profiting off Ukraine, while France and the UK have generally been at odds (yes, all those micro-states count as British as far as the French are concerned). The situations you're presenting are not comparable. And regarding PPE, yes, everyone was doing it initially but the rest of the crisis was handled together. If anything, I think the EU received extra powers to be able to handle similar crises in the future.
- unnah 5y ago
  Just a couple of weeks ago, the energy market disruptions lead Swedish and Norwegian grid operators to put restrictions on cross-border energy transfers, in violation of their co-operation agreements: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-06/europe-s-thirst-for-electricity-spurs-nordic-grid-blockade https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-06/europe-s-...
- rightbyte 5y ago
  > The odds of Nordic countries fighting each other are astronomically low. War? Sure. Political fights are not that unlikely though. Also, Norway is not part of the EU, so they can sell (or not sell) electricity how they please.
silvestrov 5y ago
Denmark and Norway have been a single country/union for more years(290) than United States of America has existed (245). We share so much culture and language that Denmark going to war with Norway would be like New York going to war with Boston.

belorn 5y ago

The Swedish hydro is currently under a lot of pressure. It is overused and need to be reduced in order to prevent extinctions of multiple species. The existing plants are old and need be repaired, and a majority of them has failed the regulative requirement for environmental preservation. Some are arguing that the law need to be changed, possible including EU law, or they won't be economical viable to get them into compliance. As one comment on the news said, it is not viable to dig out new rivers. Someone in Norway could comment if they can expand their capacity, but I suspect the answer is the same there. Hydro is good but its a finite resource, and we now know the effect it has on fish and other animals that need the water to be traversalable. Talking about the energy grid of Sweden, how many know that the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions in south of Sweden is an oil power plant? A country full of hydro and still, that is what tops the charts each year.

cinntaile 5y ago
> Talking about the energy grid of Sweden, how many know that the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions in south of Sweden is an oil power plant? A country full of hydro and still, that is what tops the charts each year. It's an oil plant, of course it's going to be a big contributor if it's running. Peaker plants are almost always fossil based, especially in regions that do not have hydro like the south of Sweden. Add to that the fact that the electricity demands outside of Sweden make the oil plant profitable from time to time. I think they run it more often ever since 2 of Ringhals reactors closed last year though, but even when they weren't closed I'd expect it to be the biggest contributor. Do you know if that was the case?
- belorn 5y ago
  What I have read is that the plant operated only for a total of a few days each year before the nuclear reactors was closed down. Karlshamnsverket was built in in 1970, and the south of Sweden had a nuclear plant in Barsebäcks until 2005. It was the combined effect of both Ringhals and Barsebäcks that created the market situation where Karlshamnsverket operates regularly all over the year when ever demand goes up. Given the amount of hydro Sweden have, it is a bit of a black mark on the country that an oil plant actually get to run as much as it does. Its worth noting that Norway doesn't seem to use a lot of oil based peaker plants. I wonder if the oil that get burned in Sweden actually comes from Norway.