4 ms·

To give a more detailed picture than simply saying "nuclear gone, coal&gas usage up": - Plan was to increase wind/solar electricity by massive amounts while ph

by erinnh 5y ago

To give a more detailed picture than simply saying "nuclear gone, coal&gas usage up": - Plan was to increase wind/solar electricity by massive amounts while phasing out old nuclear power stations over twenty years - Plan was hampered by various political parties and lots of nimby's (one conservative state basically outlawed new wind power stations) - Hence basically nowhere close enough new green electricity generation, while still phasing out nuclear over the last twenty years. - Prices were shifted around so that private persons had to directly pay for the small amount of subsidies for green electricity, while subsidies for coal/gas were kept the same and paid for via general taxes - This cost was not paid by companies, hence the total amount was put on the shoulders of private persons - This all lead to this year where gas/fuel prices went up massively everywhere, so electricity prices went up as well. This isnt a uniquely German problem. This is the case in the whole of Europe.

cinntaile 5y ago
> Plan was hampered by various political parties and lots of nimby's (one conservative state basically outlawed new wind power stations) NIMBY for wind is expected behavior, they should really not base future electricity market predictions on ideal scenario's. The opposition was there from the start and it would of course increase once the easy locations have wind installed on them.
- erinnh 5y ago
  It went so far that some electricity lines carrying power between states have had massive year-long hold-ups because of problems of where to actually put them due to nimby's.
masta 5y ago
One of the main problems is the market design for electricity in Europe. It uses a merit order based pricing model. Simplified version: - Everyone lists how much power they can produce at which marginal price (Renewables = 0c/kWh, Nuclear/Lignite = 4-8c/kWh, Gas peaker = very much based on the current gas prices) - Offers get sorted by marginal price. - Buyers put in the amount of power they want to buy. - The transaction (which is always a 1h timeslot) is resolved by adding up all buyers and take all offers from the list, till demand is fulfilled. - The price of the last kWh bought, will determine the price for everyone. So, as soon as a single gas power plant is required to fulfill demand, the whole market price is going up. With the extreme rise in gas-prices, due to Russia playing games with the gas-market, The average market prices have gone up. Especially Nuclear and Lignite plants are very happy about the current situation, as they make much more money due to market mechanisms. While lots of renewables drive the prices down (as they are usually valued at zero due to feed-in tariff regulations). Another issue is, France has multiple nuclear reactors in unplanned maintenance due to failures. Their fleet is missing more than 10% of their capacity, while most of France is heating with direct electricity heating (not even heat pumps). Result: The electricity market is in a massive crunch right now in Europe, electricity prices are driven by natural gas prices. And there we've got a huge dependency on Russia. .... And Russia is arguing that all Europe needs to do is certifying their new pipeline (Nordstream2), which comes with massive geopolitical problems attached to it.
- petre 5y ago
  Europe should certify the Russian pipeline after they move all their troops on the Ukraine border to the Far East, but fail to purchase gas from them and instead buy LPG from our US partners.
xibalba 5y ago
To play devil's advocate, don't some of these bullet points indicate that it was not a good plan to from the beginning? For example, if a plan's success hinges on building renewable generation in areas where it isn't wanted or can be blocked by the residents, it seems doomed.
- masta 5y ago
  Reality is a lot more complex. Conservative parties rule the majority of german states. Over time they added more and more rules to local law, which implicitly prevented more renewable generation, especially from wind. Also there have been a lot of astroturf groups spawning up over the years. From hard climate change denial, blackout FUD-spreader and false claims about health impacts. They feed a huge load of BS to the locals, as soon as a developer wants to create a new windpark.
- hardolaf 5y ago
  It was never a good plan from the start. They wanted to get rid of nuclear because of irrational fear. The path towards energy independence was always nuclear for every nation. But that got rejected thanks to fearmongering. Now we're basically fucked.
kennethh 5y ago
The German plan could never work. They installed a lot of solar which does not produce much energy in the winter. They installed a lot of wind which does not help when there is cold, since then there is usually not much wind. In audition they did not buy enough gas. Germans have been fooled by people who do not know how to use their calculators. See this electricity map for realtime overview of production, consumption and export/imports. https://app.electricitymap.org/ https://app.electricitymap.org/ This Norwegian article show historical average for Europe and current prices picture. https://e24.no/olje-og-energi/i/nWbMBo/nord-norge-hadde-billigst-stroem-i-europa-i-fjor https://e24.no/olje-og-energi/i/nWbMBo/nord-norge-hadde-bill...
- zibzab 5y ago
  Everytime there is a energy crisis the same group of people are quick to blame it on green energy. See for example the Texas outage. Sweden is moving to greener energy and is currently exporting electricity to Germany and Poland. How come it works here but not down there? Because bad planing, political sabotage and a whole lot of NIMBY.
  - petre 5y ago
    They're not blaming on green energy. They're blaming it on utopian Energiewende pedalled by shortsighted anti nuclear Greens. We'll see how their eco hipster green foreign affairs secretary handles this Russian crisis.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    Most of Sweden's electricity supply comes from hydro and nuclear though. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Swedens-electricity-production-1_fig1_311706711 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Swedens-electricity-prod... Hydro is maxed out basically everywhere already and nuclear is being shut down in Germany, it doesn't take a genius to see it can't work. We can't keep increasing our demand while killing the only large/cheap/on demand energy source to rely on intermittent ones. It might work if we decreased our consumption by a lot but this doesn't seem to be the plan
  - sampo 5y ago

by erinnh 5y ago

cinntaile 5y ago

> Plan was hampered by various political parties and lots of nimby's (one conservative state basically outlawed new wind power stations) NIMBY for wind is expected behavior, they should really not base future electricity market predictions on ideal scenario's. The opposition was there from the start and it would of course increase once the easy locations have wind installed on them.

erinnh 5y ago
It went so far that some electricity lines carrying power between states have had massive year-long hold-ups because of problems of where to actually put them due to nimby's.

masta 5y ago

One of the main problems is the market design for electricity in Europe. It uses a merit order based pricing model. Simplified version: - Everyone lists how much power they can produce at which marginal price (Renewables = 0c/kWh, Nuclear/Lignite = 4-8c/kWh, Gas peaker = very much based on the current gas prices) - Offers get sorted by marginal price. - Buyers put in the amount of power they want to buy. - The transaction (which is always a 1h timeslot) is resolved by adding up all buyers and take all offers from the list, till demand is fulfilled. - The price of the last kWh bought, will determine the price for everyone. So, as soon as a single gas power plant is required to fulfill demand, the whole market price is going up. With the extreme rise in gas-prices, due to Russia playing games with the gas-market, The average market prices have gone up. Especially Nuclear and Lignite plants are very happy about the current situation, as they make much more money due to market mechanisms. While lots of renewables drive the prices down (as they are usually valued at zero due to feed-in tariff regulations). Another issue is, France has multiple nuclear reactors in unplanned maintenance due to failures. Their fleet is missing more than 10% of their capacity, while most of France is heating with direct electricity heating (not even heat pumps). Result: The electricity market is in a massive crunch right now in Europe, electricity prices are driven by natural gas prices. And there we've got a huge dependency on Russia. .... And Russia is arguing that all Europe needs to do is certifying their new pipeline (Nordstream2), which comes with massive geopolitical problems attached to it.

petre 5y ago
Europe should certify the Russian pipeline after they move all their troops on the Ukraine border to the Far East, but fail to purchase gas from them and instead buy LPG from our US partners.

xibalba 5y ago

To play devil's advocate, don't some of these bullet points indicate that it was not a good plan to from the beginning? For example, if a plan's success hinges on building renewable generation in areas where it isn't wanted or can be blocked by the residents, it seems doomed.

masta 5y ago
Reality is a lot more complex. Conservative parties rule the majority of german states. Over time they added more and more rules to local law, which implicitly prevented more renewable generation, especially from wind. Also there have been a lot of astroturf groups spawning up over the years. From hard climate change denial, blackout FUD-spreader and false claims about health impacts. They feed a huge load of BS to the locals, as soon as a developer wants to create a new windpark.
hardolaf 5y ago
It was never a good plan from the start. They wanted to get rid of nuclear because of irrational fear. The path towards energy independence was always nuclear for every nation. But that got rejected thanks to fearmongering. Now we're basically fucked.

kennethh 5y ago

The German plan could never work. They installed a lot of solar which does not produce much energy in the winter. They installed a lot of wind which does not help when there is cold, since then there is usually not much wind. In audition they did not buy enough gas. Germans have been fooled by people who do not know how to use their calculators. See this electricity map for realtime overview of production, consumption and export/imports. https://app.electricitymap.org/ https://app.electricitymap.org/ This Norwegian article show historical average for Europe and current prices picture. https://e24.no/olje-og-energi/i/nWbMBo/nord-norge-hadde-billigst-stroem-i-europa-i-fjor https://e24.no/olje-og-energi/i/nWbMBo/nord-norge-hadde-bill...

zibzab 5y ago
Everytime there is a energy crisis the same group of people are quick to blame it on green energy. See for example the Texas outage. Sweden is moving to greener energy and is currently exporting electricity to Germany and Poland. How come it works here but not down there? Because bad planing, political sabotage and a whole lot of NIMBY.
- petre 5y ago
  They're not blaming on green energy. They're blaming it on utopian Energiewende pedalled by shortsighted anti nuclear Greens. We'll see how their eco hipster green foreign affairs secretary handles this Russian crisis.
- lm28469 5y ago
  Most of Sweden's electricity supply comes from hydro and nuclear though. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Swedens-electricity-production-1_fig1_311706711 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Swedens-electricity-prod... Hydro is maxed out basically everywhere already and nuclear is being shut down in Germany, it doesn't take a genius to see it can't work. We can't keep increasing our demand while killing the only large/cheap/on demand energy source to rely on intermittent ones. It might work if we decreased our consumption by a lot but this doesn't seem to be the plan
- sampo 5y ago