7 ms·

Finland Electricity Prices Flip Negative After Glut of Hydroelectric Power

26 points by DocFeind 3y ago

fifilura 3y ago
You can get an overview of the electricity situation in the nordics here: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ The page is in Swedish, but i am guessing the important information is still comprehensible (Vatten = Hydro/Water, Kärnkraft = Nuclear). As you can see (if you read this today), the electricity is at €0 in both Finland, mid/north Sweden and north Norway. Finland just finished their long awaited nuclear power reactor OL3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant Before the new reactor the normal situation for them would be to import some electricity from Sweden/Norway. What happened today is that Finland's nuclear power is on full steam, while wind power in Sweden is producing a lot (more than nuclear in both Finland and Sweden a the moment, Sweden has a couple of reactors down for maintenance today). Hydro in Sweden is producing very little today, guessing as little as is practically possible.
- eesmith 3y ago
  > What happened today is that Finland's nuclear power is on full steam, Really? https://yle.fi/a/74-20032375 https://yle.fi/a/74-20032375 from 10 days ago says "The output of Finland's newest nuclear power facility, Olkiluoto 3, has been significantly cut back because electricity has become too cheap" (Was on HN 2 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36069517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36069517 .) It goes on to say: "Generally, the amount of electricity generated in Finland is regulated by increasing or decreasing the amount of hydroelectric power that is used. However, due to flood conditions in northern Finland, reducing hydroelectric-generated electricity is challenging at the moment."
  - fifilura 3y ago
    Ok, thanks for pointing out. Hydro power is rather small in Finland, and it actually seems they increased nuclear power from 3.9GW to 4.3GW during the day today. (again: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ ) This page says that 4.3 GW is very close to the nuclear capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland
kuratkull 3y ago
Estonia (just south of Finland) just dropped to negative too a week ago. When comparing December and April, the reason it actually costs <0 is that all the solar panels in the country are producing more than we can consume on weekends, inside the week it's often 0 when there's sunshine. In December we were paying through our nose for electricity and there was even a slight panic about it. I appreciate nuclear power, but I'm not sure it's the primary factor in Finland.
didgetmaster 3y ago
Are the electrical grids in northern Europe not interconnected? It would seem that if one country happens to be producing more energy than its people currently needs, then it should be able to sell the excess to other countries where that is not the case.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Even the USA grid is fragmented. There seem to be limits on efficient transmission and synchronization of power on the grid. Connections to import or export excess power are limited in practice. Finding local storage options (pumped hydro, compressed air, etc. Etc.) seems key. -------- Local grids can use the free market (ex: negative prices electricity) to encourage use or savings from the public. Ex, electric car owners can wait for negative electricity before charging. At least, in theory they could. It's all a bit handwavey and futuristic. But these things are possible if we solve a few key issues over the next decade. Energy storage could be partially solved by load shifting: we kindly ask and encourage chargers at certain time, washer/driers or even AC with $$$ incentives to reward those who load shift. It can also be attacked with utility scale storage. And finally additional export/import power lines to other grids.
- fifilura 3y ago
  A part of it (as my other comment) is that Sweden produce heaps of wind power today. So there is not much point to export in that direction. But the limitation here is the power grid. The cables to southern Sweden and south Norway can not handle the export. And the cables to Germany is even more strained. Some say that this is good for us because otherwise our electricity price would have been much higher last winter.
- eesmith 3y ago
  They are. Here are the grids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... But there's only so much power you can transmit over the interconnects. If I read the list right, in 2019 Finland could generate 17.3 GW but only transfer 3.9 GW out of the country. Going further requires going through even more interconnects, which might have even lower capacity. There are long-term goals to increase capacity. There's also opposition to those increases.
londgine 3y ago
What does negative electricity price even mean? Is it really worth while for power companies to pay people to receive electricity over their electrical infrastructure? Would it not be cheaper to drive a metal rod into the ground and send it there? > In practice, it doesn't appear any ordinary Finns are being paid to consume electricity. People pay a markup on the electricity, and often pay agreed rates for power instead of the raw market price. Or am I completely misunderstanding negative priced electricity? Is it just a clickbait term?
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  My understanding was that it sometimes happens in the commercial market - there's some inertia in large power systems and so sometimes it can help balance things out to pay someone to sink electricity. I read something about this in a paper discussing the economics of grid-scale batteries - basically they can potentially make lots of money by playing both ends of the market and can switch on/off with incredible speed compared to other generation.
  - londgine 3y ago
    but how can sending power through the lines, and then paying someone to accept it really be cheaper for the power company than simply sending it to ground?
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      You know that when you send 10MW of power to ground, all the wires will just melt.... Right? Maybe not even melt. The copper might skip the liquid phase and just vaporize to gas at those temperatures. -------- Power to ground doesn't just mean wasting electricity. It also means perfectly turning that energy into heat. We are screwed by thermodynamics. Energy is never wasted, just converted to different forms. We usually call heat waste but in utility scale power design (Megawatts+) it's not easy to find energy sinks in practice that can absorb excess energy generated. ------- In practice, you want the generators to stop making electricity (at least, the generators that __can__ stop in time). But some equipment cant stop in time to respond to the hourly electricity market.
euroderf 3y ago
Finland has multiple interconnects to neighboring nations. So how's them energy export revenues ?
- skrause 3y ago
  Probably nowhere to export to because other countries don't need the energy either. Electricity prices flipped deep into the negative in Germany as well because there is just so much renewable energy during these sunny days: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=21&year=2023 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/char...
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Wow!
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  Sweden has been continously exporting ~1-2 GW to Finland due to the hole OL3 caused in the grid due to the 14 year delay. There's no need for the power anywhere Finland can export it.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Yeah apparently Estonia is in pretty good shape too.

26 points by DocFeind 3y ago

You can get an overview of the electricity situation in the nordics here: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ The page is in Swedish, but i am guessing the important information is still comprehensible (Vatten = Hydro/Water, Kärnkraft = Nuclear). As you can see (if you read this today), the electricity is at €0 in both Finland, mid/north Sweden and north Norway. Finland just finished their long awaited nuclear power reactor OL3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant Before the new reactor the normal situation for them would be to import some electricity from Sweden/Norway. What happened today is that Finland's nuclear power is on full steam, while wind power in Sweden is producing a lot (more than nuclear in both Finland and Sweden a the moment, Sweden has a couple of reactors down for maintenance today). Hydro in Sweden is producing very little today, guessing as little as is practically possible.

eesmith 3y ago
> What happened today is that Finland's nuclear power is on full steam, Really? https://yle.fi/a/74-20032375 https://yle.fi/a/74-20032375 from 10 days ago says "The output of Finland's newest nuclear power facility, Olkiluoto 3, has been significantly cut back because electricity has become too cheap" (Was on HN 2 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36069517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36069517 .) It goes on to say: "Generally, the amount of electricity generated in Finland is regulated by increasing or decreasing the amount of hydroelectric power that is used. However, due to flood conditions in northern Finland, reducing hydroelectric-generated electricity is challenging at the moment."
- fifilura 3y ago
  Ok, thanks for pointing out. Hydro power is rather small in Finland, and it actually seems they increased nuclear power from 3.9GW to 4.3GW during the day today. (again: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ ) This page says that 4.3 GW is very close to the nuclear capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland

kuratkull 3y ago

Estonia (just south of Finland) just dropped to negative too a week ago. When comparing December and April, the reason it actually costs <0 is that all the solar panels in the country are producing more than we can consume on weekends, inside the week it's often 0 when there's sunshine. In December we were paying through our nose for electricity and there was even a slight panic about it. I appreciate nuclear power, but I'm not sure it's the primary factor in Finland.

didgetmaster 3y ago

Are the electrical grids in northern Europe not interconnected? It would seem that if one country happens to be producing more energy than its people currently needs, then it should be able to sell the excess to other countries where that is not the case.

dragontamer 3y ago
Even the USA grid is fragmented. There seem to be limits on efficient transmission and synchronization of power on the grid. Connections to import or export excess power are limited in practice. Finding local storage options (pumped hydro, compressed air, etc. Etc.) seems key. -------- Local grids can use the free market (ex: negative prices electricity) to encourage use or savings from the public. Ex, electric car owners can wait for negative electricity before charging. At least, in theory they could. It's all a bit handwavey and futuristic. But these things are possible if we solve a few key issues over the next decade. Energy storage could be partially solved by load shifting: we kindly ask and encourage chargers at certain time, washer/driers or even AC with $$$ incentives to reward those who load shift. It can also be attacked with utility scale storage. And finally additional export/import power lines to other grids.
fifilura 3y ago
A part of it (as my other comment) is that Sweden produce heaps of wind power today. So there is not much point to export in that direction. But the limitation here is the power grid. The cables to southern Sweden and south Norway can not handle the export. And the cables to Germany is even more strained. Some say that this is good for us because otherwise our electricity price would have been much higher last winter.
eesmith 3y ago
They are. Here are the grids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... But there's only so much power you can transmit over the interconnects. If I read the list right, in 2019 Finland could generate 17.3 GW but only transfer 3.9 GW out of the country. Going further requires going through even more interconnects, which might have even lower capacity. There are long-term goals to increase capacity. There's also opposition to those increases.

londgine 3y ago

What does negative electricity price even mean? Is it really worth while for power companies to pay people to receive electricity over their electrical infrastructure? Would it not be cheaper to drive a metal rod into the ground and send it there? > In practice, it doesn't appear any ordinary Finns are being paid to consume electricity. People pay a markup on the electricity, and often pay agreed rates for power instead of the raw market price. Or am I completely misunderstanding negative priced electricity? Is it just a clickbait term?

hotpotamus 3y ago
My understanding was that it sometimes happens in the commercial market - there's some inertia in large power systems and so sometimes it can help balance things out to pay someone to sink electricity. I read something about this in a paper discussing the economics of grid-scale batteries - basically they can potentially make lots of money by playing both ends of the market and can switch on/off with incredible speed compared to other generation.
- londgine 3y ago
  but how can sending power through the lines, and then paying someone to accept it really be cheaper for the power company than simply sending it to ground?
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    You know that when you send 10MW of power to ground, all the wires will just melt.... Right? Maybe not even melt. The copper might skip the liquid phase and just vaporize to gas at those temperatures. -------- Power to ground doesn't just mean wasting electricity. It also means perfectly turning that energy into heat. We are screwed by thermodynamics. Energy is never wasted, just converted to different forms. We usually call heat waste but in utility scale power design (Megawatts+) it's not easy to find energy sinks in practice that can absorb excess energy generated. ------- In practice, you want the generators to stop making electricity (at least, the generators that __can__ stop in time). But some equipment cant stop in time to respond to the hourly electricity market.

euroderf 3y ago

Finland has multiple interconnects to neighboring nations. So how's them energy export revenues ?

skrause 3y ago
Probably nowhere to export to because other countries don't need the energy either. Electricity prices flipped deep into the negative in Germany as well because there is just so much renewable energy during these sunny days: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=21&year=2023 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/char...
- euroderf 3y ago
  Wow!
Gwypaas 3y ago
Sweden has been continously exporting ~1-2 GW to Finland due to the hole OL3 caused in the grid due to the 14 year delay. There's no need for the power anywhere Finland can export it.
- euroderf 3y ago
  Yeah apparently Estonia is in pretty good shape too.