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Current spot price in northern Norway is €10.16/MWh, while it is €745.08/MWh in southern Norway (73x the price), largely due to limitations in transport network
by pveierland 4y ago
Current spot price in northern Norway is €10.16/MWh, while it is €745.08/MWh in southern Norway (73x the price), largely due to limitations in transport networks between the electricity zones. The price in the northern zone is so low that some hydro plants have stopped producing electricity as they would be losing money at the current price level.
https://www.skandiaenergi.no/dagens-spotpriser/ https://www.skandiaenergi.no/dagens-spotpriser/
Electricity Maps has an excellent visualization showing breakdowns of each electricity zone, with imports/export to each neighbor zone etc:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/ https://app.electricitymaps.com/
- pojzon 4y agoIve tried to explain this issue to EVs fanatics, but nobody listens. Anytime you mention energy transmision issues - you get total backlash. We wasted EU money on pointless stuff while we could have upgraded our transit cables etc.
- pornel 4y agoBacklash is probably because such argument can sound like “better give up on EVs and go back to ICE” rather than “let’s invest more in the energy infrastructure”. If you call people fanatics, they won’t believe you’re making a good faith argument.
- kitbrennan 4y agoNeither investment in EVs and repairing transmission issues live in isolation and both can be invested in at the same time. Solving one issue might also help solve the other (e.g. charging EVs can occur at non-peak times which balances energy demands, and in future EVs could be used as batteries to discharge into the grid during peak times).
- vorpalhex 4y agoCalifornia has to shut down their grid occasionally just because it's in such poor repair that wildfires are a risk. I can't imagine how they are going to handle everyone getting EVs.
- gibolt 4y agoSolar and distributed storage help fight this. A significant amount of charging off peak also actually reduces the load, making things more reliable and cleaner. Fire related grid shutdowns are usually hyperlocal, meaning the few who need to charge during that time can just run a town over. (keep in mind that EVs can be charged just less than once a week for average use)
- iso1631 4y agoEVs are literally distributed storage, a Tesla Model S has a 90kWh battery -- that's enough to run the owner's house for 3 days.
- chrisseaton 4y agoIn most places electricity cables are buried. In California they have them blowing around in the trees so they start fires.
- formerly_proven 4y agoStreet-level and medium-voltage distribution, sure, but nobody wants to bury 100+ kV lines unless they really have to, because it's hugely expensive and also has much higher losses.
- mbreese 4y agoThis isn’t true. In most places I’ve been, electrical lines have all been elevated on poles. Where I currently live, there is a pretty intensive line clearing program each spring to keep the lines clear. Even in places where house level lines were buried, the middle transmission lines were still elevated. And I believe all high voltage transmission lines are above ground. The difference is that California historically has fire prone conditions. It’s not like the rest of the country is doing something different and California has done something inherently wrong. It’s that California did what the rest of the country was doing, but without conditions to support it.
- 4y ago
- Reason077 4y agoThe transmission issues will be solved: more and more HVDC interconnections start construction in Europe every year. Grids that still rely heavily on coal and natural gas can, and will, be improved. An EV bought today will only get cleaner as the grid gets cleaner. A new fossil-fuel vehicle today will always be dependent on fossil fuels, and will always pollute at least as much as the day it was purchased.
- foxhill 4y agoeven if it ran on gasoline created from carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere?
- adrianN 4y agoWe don't have perfectly impact-free ways of creating energy. So using less energy to achieve the same goal is always better. And carbon dioxide is not the only pollutant that cars emit.
- zionic 4y agoThat gasoline wouldn’t be an energy source, it’d be an extremely crappy battery. Far better to just send the power via grid to an EV @95% then toss 60% or more of it to make a gallon of gas
- foxhill 4y ago
- spaceman_2020 4y agoGermany’s obsession with solar and wind is absolutely baffling. It takes very little to know that Germany simply does not have the conditions for large scale solar. Yet it was pushed so heavily in lieu of nuclear power. Absurd.
- number6 4y agoNuclear isn't going well for France right now. And most of the EU uran comes from Russia
- spaceman_2020 4y agoYeah but nuclear fuel can be sourced from elsewhere - it does not have the steep physical barriers of nat gas. And any existing nuclear power issues can be solved. The amount of sunlight your receive, however, will always be the same.
- number6 4y agoHow do you solve that the rivers are too hot to cool the reactors to produce more energy?
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoWe have built reactors in literal deserts, but the cooling system needs to bw different ofcourse https://min.news/en/tech/30bdf6748162428883857d361132e177.html https://min.news/en/tech/30bdf6748162428883857d361132e177.ht...
- voqv 4y agoThis meme has to end, there’s only one nuclear power plant in France (Blayais) that has no cooling towers, and another 4 have to occasionally throttle power output due to ecological concerns (used water is too hot, they currently have temporary exceptions).
- pyrale 4y ago
- zionic 4y agoI’m just exhausted from arguing with the electrically illiterate. HVDC makes transmission from state to state trivial at almost no loss. We should have a national HVDC grid so that a breeze in Texas might power a toaster in Connecticut. Instead we have another $XX Billion for Ukraine. Another $13B here for a new carrier we’ll never need etc etc. So much waste everywhere while fundamental problems go unsolved.
- atemerev 4y agoThe fall of Ukraine will mean the beginning of the new Soviet Union (but even _more_ evil), and most probably a world war, so it should be prevented at all costs possible. Not event to mention that the invasion is plainly evil, and should be repealed.
- effie 4y ago> new Soviet Union Any reason to think this? Did Soviet Union form by Russia invading and conquering another country? No, it was a result of fall of the Russian empire and the Russian civil war. The conditions now are very different. Fall of Ukraine would mean political win for Putin and his acolytes, maybe another invasion later on. But Soviet Union? More like stronger Russia, a revert to the Russian Empire.
- PeterisP 4y agoIt's not a matter of cost, there's no political desire for a national HVDC grid so that a breeze in Texas might power a toaster in Connecticut - Texas has explicitly refused connecting to the rest of the country for many years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- unyttigfjelltol 4y agoAll energy problem reduce to problems of energy transportation. We have a huge fusion reactor in the sky. The challenge is capture and transit. The problem is not incidental; it's fundamental.
- google234123 4y agoA huge fusion reactor in the sky that isn't available in the evening or when it's cloudy.
- bambax 4y agoIt's always available somewhere, so it is, in fact, a transport problem.
- teddyh 4y agoThat’s just a different problem we can’t solve, either.
- lenkite 4y agoJust need to wait for Putin to conquer the world and build Putin Pipes.
- kkfx 4y agoDid you really think that the actual crisis is due to a single man choice? Try a small game, put PR and the emotion they push aside: who need a war today? If you are honest you have to admit that the most in need of a war are UK first, USA second. UK need a war outside to avoid a civil war inside. Having essentially lost their "empire" status they are simply unable to live anymore. A war would compact people and if won give resource of the looser. USA need a war for similar reasons, mitigated by the fact that USA can actually live on it's own, even alone, "only" correcting it's crazy economy. Not easy at all, but technically possible, so practically when crisis really bite. China do not need, but like, a war. They have a hyper big food issue, they need to conquer south America to eat. To do so they need to overpower the USA. To do so they need Russia's tech and natural resources, something Russia, a China's historic enemy, do not like that much to share to such a big & powerful giant. Russia do not like a war at all. It's something that impose agreements with China, imbalanced. EU similarly do not need a war. It simply destroy EU itself due to the lack of natural resources. So the plan is? Well. USA declare it essentially in the far 2004: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%20the%20Global%20Future%202020%20Project.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%... oh, they are formally just acritical prediction from the intelligence to the politicians. But sounds really accurate. In more modern terms: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/R... A bottomline: saying that UK and USA need a war means their oppressive ruling classes need it, of course NOT the people, unfortunately as most people in the world those who do need the opposite of their ruling class are the last to understand they are fighting for their own enemy that's not those on the opposite front, but those who march at their head.
- stark98 4y agoAre there any plans to build an infrastructure to connect both networks? It seems like a great idea in the current situation
- jillesvangurp 4y agoAlready exists. The main limitation is the number of cables and GW capacity.Also ramping up cable production has a bit of latency and installing them even more. And it's capital intensive and only makes sense when electricity prices are high. They are right now but that's not a permanent situation.
- bombcar 4y agoAnd the problem with building massive interconnects that are rarely used is that it’s not economical to do so. They need to be encouraged by outside means.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoWould be cheaper to build wind power. The reason the southern areas have high prices is because they are connected to other markets. Connect the northern stuff better and it'll equalise the price but not substantially. High cost low gain compared with cheap new wind generation.
- Hanschri 4y agoA political issue with this is that Northern Norway has been exempt from the 25% VAT as one of many measures to make living in Northern Norway more attractive. Until now the cost of power in both north and south has been pretty much the same, meaning people in power zone NO4 have paid about the same price for power, but not the VAT. But now that the price has gone up by such an enormous amount in the south, connecting north and south will not reduce the price in the other zones, it will likely just cause NO4 to go up to the same level as in the rest of Norway. This is mainly due to the NO4 being basically not connected to the the synchronous grid of Continental Europe, while the other regions are to a much larger extent due to underwater cables going to the UK, Denmark and Germany. This means that the price of power in Europe directly influences the price of electricity in NO1-3, but not NO4. At least not to the same extent, although Sweden makes a killing buying cheap power from NO4 and selling it to mainland Europe, or even straight back to southern Norway. As such, connecting NO4 to the rest of Norway and by extention the European grid, would not be very popular in the north, but to be fair, the price increase has not exactly been popular in the south either. The industry in Norway is highly electrified and some sectors are very energy intensive, such as aluminium production, which due to using electrolysis, runs almost entirely off the grid. Manufacturing used almost 37% of all power consumed in Norway in 2017, with power-intensive manufacturing accounting for over 80% of total energy use in the manufacturing sector that year.[0] This is also an issue which will need to be considered when talking about increasing transfer capacity between the two zones. I hope this gives some insight, even if I rambled a bit and touched on a lot of different aspects. I'm by no means an expert, but have become interested in the subject as so many other Norwegians have lately. I'd love to answer more questions if you have any! [0] https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energibruk/energibruken-i-ulike-sektorer/ https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energibruk/energibruken... (Source in English and published by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy)
- rypskar 4y agoLimitations in transport capacity is only one part of it, a large part is that the northern zone have had rain most of the summer, much more than usual, while the south have had a dry summer. We did basically get all the rain the rest of Europe have been missing this summer
- intothemild 4y agoAs someone in Oslo... This makes me super jealous.
- colechristensen 4y agoOk, fun ideas for what to do with a megawatt hour for $10? (that aren't mining crypto)
- colechristensen 4y agoI'll start: Load up a truck with several tons of batteries, charge them, and ship the electricity south.
- PeterisP 4y agoNot really worth it. A ballpark calculation - ignoring any infrastructure and time for charging/offloading, assuming you get the batteries and the electricity for free, using Tesla batteries as an example, a MWh of them would weigh more than 6 tons; so freight truck can carry at most 2-3 MWh worth of batteries (density is likely to be an issue) and the sale price of that truck full of electricity even at the current outrageous prices is just 1000 eur, perhaps 2000 if you drive all the way across Europe. Shipping cargo on such trucks costs something like 1.5 eur/km nowadays (we don't have cheap self-driving electric trucks yet..) so if you'd have to drive more than a few hundred km (and you have to drive the batteries back!), you'd be better off using these trucks to ship something else than electricity.
- njsteinsund 4y agoAt this 6km/20 mins long ferry crossing the electric ferry containing 1MWh of batteries can charge at €10/MWh on the north side of the fjord, with the price on the south side at approximately €500/MWh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ampere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ampere
- PeterisP 4y agoA 6km high voltage transmission line will be much more effective still.
- qzw 4y ago