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Germany € 0.29/kWh € 0.45/kWh Finland € 0.12/kWh € 0.22/kWh Damn, why is electricity in Germany over twice as expensive as in Finland? I doubt Germans have
by ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Germany € 0.29/kWh € 0.45/kWh
Finland € 0.12/kWh € 0.22/kWh
Damn, why is electricity in Germany over twice as expensive as in Finland?
I doubt Germans have twice the purchasing power as Finns.
- zach_garwood 4y agoFinland has oil. Germany imports oil from Russia.
- weberer 4y agoYou're thinking of Norway. Finland does not have any oil reserves at all.
- zach_garwood 4y agoYou're right
- jansan 4y agoOnly 0.2% of the electricity is generated from oil in Finland. But Finland produces a good quarter of its electricity from nuclear power. Maybe that makes a difference?
- ztrww 4y agoIt’s hard to export electricity from Finland due to it’s geographic location and it’s main connections are with Sweden where electricity is also much cheaper than in continental Europe.
- doikor 4y agoAnd the national grids of Sweden and Norway can't really keep up with the current load. The price of electricity up north is dirt cheap due to lots of hydro but the grid just can't get it to where the people are (south). So you get crazy 100x price differences between the two ends of the countries. This is also why both Sweden and Norway want to invest into new transfer lines to northern Finland as the national grid of Finland is actually in good enough shape that any electricity you get to any part of it can actually be sold to a customer anywhere in the country. This is why Finland is a single price zone when both Sweden and Norway are split into multiple zones (4 and 5)
- nik736 4y agoPolitics
- doikor 4y agoGas and oil use for electricity is very low. Electricity is over 85% renewable and nuclear with most of the rest coming as industrial or district heating by products District heating is quite often coal or oil for now but quickly changing to non carbon forms. Here is a real time view of the electricity market in Finland https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/ https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/ Germany on the other hand bet heavily into gas (and mostly as pipelines to Russia without building any LNG terminals of their own for redundancy) while trying to change over to renewables. Now gas is very expensive and the change over is not finished yet so they have to burn expensive gas and keep their old coal plants running (very expensive in terms of co2 credits) edit: Electricity is really expensive now in Europe in general due to sanctions on Russia (and their retaliation cuts). Hopefully the new Olkiluoto 3 reactor goes into full production mode before winter to help a bit (it is running at partial power during testing at the moment)
- jansan 4y agoGermany already had the highest electricity prices in the world even when gas was cheap. Green energy has become an ersatz-religion here.
- PinguTS 4y agoGreen energy is in the costs of 8 cents/Wh. Coal is more expansive as gas always was. Only nuclear is calculated with 2 cents/Wh ignoring the costs of the nuclear waste as this paid for by taxes in addition.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoFinland has a lot of nuclear and hydro, which are stable sources. Hydro can get dirt cheap since production is basically constant even if demand is low.
- ubercore 4y agoHydro may be stable, but prices are soaring in Norway as well, despite being mostly hydro. The entire energy market in Europe is having a tough time.
- weberer 4y agoGermany shut down all their nuclear plants about 10 years ago, opting to rely on natural gas from Russia. Finland invested in nuclear and is bringing their latest plant online this fall. It doesn't take a genius to see which one would be hit harder by sanctions on Russian gas.
- jansan 4y agoIt didn't take a genius even 10 years ago. That decision to get out of nuclear power, based only on emotions, was a grave mistake.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago> Germany shut down all their nuclear plants about 10 years ago... "Nuclear power in Germany accounted for 13.3% of German electricity supply in 2021, generated by six power plants, of which three were switched off at the end of 2021, the other three due to cease operation at the end of 2022 according to the complete nuclear phase-out plan of 2011." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
- wewxjfq 4y agoAnd spot market prices last December when all six plants were running at full power were as high as they are now. This has nothing to do with nuclear energy. It's demand pushing Germany to run more expensive power plants, which in turn dictate the price of electricity for all power plants, so pointing at the electricity mix of Germany is a waste of time.
- fs111 4y ago> Finland invested in nuclear and is bringing their latest plant online this fall. How exactly has a not yet operating reactor that is vastly over budget and time any influence on the current price though?
- weberer 4y ago1. The Hetzner article is about future prices 2. Supply and demand
- londons_explore 4y agoThe instantaneous market price that everyone pays is the marginal cost of the most expensive power source currently online. For nearly every country worldwide, that is gas turbines most of the time. Even if 90% of power generation is coming from solar, it's the 10% gas that sets the price (since the marginal cost of installed solar is near zero). Gas prices in Europe vary by region, but are pretty much determined by gas transport capacities to Germany. Ie. Germany has the highest prices because of government mandates to fill storage. Any place with good gas transport links also has high prices. Places with few/no pipelines to Germany and an independent supply have low prices. And that is why Germany is twice Finland (Finland gets gas from Norway, and neither has big pipelines to Germany).
- SnowHill9902 4y agoNot really. That’s the theoretical microeconomics approach if all kWh were “rebid” instantaneously. In fact, wholesale distributors can dampen the cost by diversifying in time (with contracts), location (by distribution) and cost (different plants).
- doikor 4y ago> (Finland gets gas from Norway, and neither has big pipelines to Germany). Not really. Finland used to get gas from Russia but now it is mostly from a pipeline through Estonia to Latvia where it arrives in ships from wherever happens to be the cheapest (we are in process of building the first LNG terminal in Finland). Could be Norway but can also be USA, middle east, etc Finland just doesn't use much gas for electricity. What we use mostly goes into industrial processes. We do have a couple gas peaker plants but those are only used in the winter if needed. Actual load balancing happens through hydro (and imports from Norway/Sweden but that is also mostly hydro)
- ztrww 4y agoThere is no LNG terminal in Latvia the closest one is in Lithuania. Also AFAIK it doesn't even have enough capacity for the three baltic states let alone Finland. So chances are you most of the gas your buying through Estonia is Russian, just sold be some reseller.
- samsk 4y agoThe primary reason is: Winter is coming... But there is more: - They wanted to be super green so lets go with sun and wind - But, hey sun and wind are not reliable (not talking about some problems that the grid is not very good prepared to handle the peaks), especially not in winter - Let's use gas to cover that, Russia is so friendly country, and its all about business, what kind of maniac would stop natural gas, when we pay billions for it - Hmm, well there is 'a country' that is using natural gas to do politics, but hey, they got Crimea now, what would they want more, when we are still paying that billions to them. Let's build another gas pipe, and pretend nothing can go wrong, while ignoring that negativistic east-european countries preparing for worst case scenario - And, what about shutting down that completely functional nuclear power plants ? We want to be green, lets do that. - Oops, our lovely natural gas supplier attacked another country - Oops, our natural gas power plants are somehow costly to run now, lets burn some coal - Oops, coal is also getting a bit expensive - Oops, our not very friendly natural gas supplier, occasionally stops natural gas now - Ooops, our natural gas reservoirs will be not full before winter - Oooops, winter is coming...
- riskable 4y ago> They wanted to be super green so lets go with sun and wind This is a complete mischaracterization of why Germany invested so much into renewables. Like... 20 years ago? Germany saw the writing on the wall when it comes to how they were getting their energy which at the time was mostly coming from coal. They didn't want to go Nuclear for whatever reason so that left renewables and natural gas which wasn't preferred but it was still significantly better. They didn't do it just to "be super green". They did it because coal is all around bad and wasn't the future that Germany wanted--and they were right. They absolutely made the right decision back then and investments by the German government are a big reason why solar is the cheapest form of energy right now (thanks Germany!). If anything they didn't invest enough in renewables. They obviously didn't expect the effects of global warming to come this quickly. A big reason why electricity is so expensive is because the rivers in France that supply water to their nuclear reactors dried up. I mean, how do you predict something like that happening even 10 years ago? Even if that was a possibility included in some climate change report how seriously would politicians take such a prediction?
- bungle 4y agoThis picture shows you this crazyness: https://lampopumput.info/foorumi/attachments/1660195161813-png.79639/ https://lampopumput.info/foorumi/attachments/1660195161813-p... In north Norway the electricity costs: 0.75 c/kWh In south Norway the electricity costs: 307.00 c/kWh In Latvia it costs: 1,240.00 c/kWh It is like that every day everywhere in Europe. In Finland the transfer line to Estonia means a lot to our local prices. If we cannot get that line fully utilised (in normal non-windy day, and I bet producers want it to stay around 99%), it means that prices are fixed to Estonia (which you can see in that picture). If we get the line fully loaded, Finland divides to its own market and prices drop considerably. In Norway and Sweden you can see multiple prices inside a country. It is because their internal lines are not sturdy enough to transfer enough electricity to south (in nordics it is common that electricity is made at north (e.g. a lot of rivers), but needed at south). The random energy (wind) has made this quite crazy. On windy days, the electricity price can even be negative. But wind energy is not reliable at all. But nobody builds or wants to run anything else as wind is easily the cheapest on windy days, and it is not that easy to always start and stop other facilities, which operate with losses on windy days. In general Germany jumped to a dwell, and everyone followed, and now we are where we are.
- jve 4y ago> In Latvia it costs: 1,240.00 c/kWh Note that this is particular price point today (11.08.2022) at 12 - 13. Record was some other day for 2100 c/kWh. However at particular moment, you can get 27 c/kWh fixed price contract. (last year it was 6 c/kWh)
- NorwegianDude 4y agoIt's not that the energy is made in in the northern parts of Norway. Most energy is from the south west of Norway, but the southern parts of Norway has connections to other parts of Europe and is affected by the energy crisis in Europe. But the part about capacity internally is true, so the average price in northern Norway today is 0.00061 EUR/kWh(yes, you read that correctly) while it's 0.35 EUR/kWh in the south. That's 574 times as expensive! Norway is making a ton of money on energy export now.
- sneak 4y agoThere is also an energy consumption tax in Germany: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromsteuergesetz_(Deutschland) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromsteuergesetz_(Deutschland... I don't know if Finland has something equivalent or not.