7 ms·

How is it worse in Europe? Where in Europe is it worse? I can't remember the last time the grid failed.

sfn42 3y ago
Not sure what OP refers to but it isn't very long ago that we were paying over a dollar per kwh in Norway. We've always had extremely low energy prices due to our abundant hydroelectric power etc, but now it's all being sold to Germany or whatever and we get to buy their coal power for 30 times the price we're used to.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  Yea, that was when we refused to buy natural gas from a dictator attacking sovereign countries. And due to how the market was built, Germany's over-reliance on Russian gas affected everyone for a good while. On the other hand I've been enjoying pretty much free electricity for about 6 months now. A few rare spikes up to 40c/kWh, but it's mostly been under 1c/kWh.
  - yunohn 3y ago
    > A few rare spikes up to 40c/kWh, but it's mostly been under 1c/kWh. The cheapest rate I can get in NL is ~30c/kwh, and that’s with a dynamic price contract. The government has applied an artificial limit of 40c/kwh for 2023, after energy companies here fleeced everyone last year. Unfortunately, it expires by 2024. The worst part is that NL privatized the energy market long ago, to give people “choice” - which has only led to coordinated exorbitant pricing.
    - tuukkah 3y ago
      Finland now has the opposite problem where the market price is negative at times. Our neighbours (Sweden, Estonia) are not able to import as much as we produce excess on good days. Luckily, more cables are being built and the variably cheap electricity attracts new industry that can make use of it (green hydrogen and green steel production).
    - yurishimo 3y ago
      I was one of those people who got fleeced. I moved here in the fall of 2022, right before winter started. My monthly fee to Vattenfall was €400/mo for an "A" rated new build apartment of 90m2. I had just moved and didn't know any better. I knew the war was contributing to energy prices but I had no idea to what extent. Last winter, we kept the heat on to a minimum and tried to keep the lights off. Really, the killer was the price of gas for heating (in-floor) and hot water. But even by comparison, my 20 minute hot shower once every 2-3 days wasn't really the issue. Our "usage" for January was over €550. Luckily, I used basically nothing the first two months I lived here so it averaged out so I didn't need to pay anything. Had I known what I know now, I would have purchased electric space heaters and ran them 24/7... it probably would have been cheaper and I could have walked around my apartment naked while it was -2 outside. I've switched to Tibber (Swedish company I think?) on a variable rate plan and have been much happier. It would be one thing if I could have locked in a rate at Vattenfall, but even that wasn't possible. You still pay out the ass for all of your usage, so I might as well not overpay when it's cheaper to produce. In the meantime, I'm saving some money each month for winter and will still likely invest in a couple of space heaters since the price of natural gas is still pretty high. Now we've seen what some families have had to deal with paying their year-end balances and that is/should be criminal. I've seen people receiving bills for thousands of Euros. Their only crime was living in an older home with 2 kids. Got forbid you want your family to be clean and warm! I understand there is some personal responsibility to be taken, but obviously something went very very wrong.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  From the market's point of view selling to Germany distributes the goods more efficiently. Germans don't freeze in the Winter, while you don't keep office buildings lit up at night just because electricity is cheap. It feels like you're losing here, but on average everyone wins. (also, there's the whole invasion of Ukraine going on, which has caused a massive disruption to the market)
  - guappa 3y ago
    Oh the offices are all on at night. No worries there.
    - baq 3y ago
      Can’t for the life of me understand that particular Scandinavian peculiarity in what would seem otherwise very rational society. I assume it must have been logical or still is?
      - guappa 3y ago
        To be honest I have no idea. I'm baffled/enraged to walk at night and see rows of tall buildings completely lit up with nobody inside. It's basically impossible to see anything in the sky other than Jupiter here, because of the insane light pollution.
      - vegardx 3y ago
        For most homes and offices the primary source of heating is electrical, so in the winter it doens't really make much difference whether you turn the lights off or not, heat is heat. In the summer there's no excuse though. Old habits die hard, or something like that. That said, modern LED-lighting doesn't really use that much electricity, all lights in my apartment use a total of 100Wh, or 75kWh per month. I could turn off all lights in my apartment for a year and it still wouldn't be close to the energy needed for a single transaction on the bitcoin blockchain. But clearly some speculative investment has more utility than me not stumping my toe when going to the bathroom at night.
- wewxjfq 3y ago
  Norway had trouble with hydro power because of low water levels. Compared to 2021, hydro power was down 10%, imports went up by 60%, and exports remained the same. And for the record, Germany didn't have any trouble with electricity last year, they exported records amounts of it, even increased the usage of gas to meet other countries' demands. Germany exported more electricity to Luxemburg than Norway exported to Germany - and while it seems popular for Norwegians here to claim that Germany wrecked their electricity market, I've yet to see a German claim that little Luxemburg caused electricity prices to explode in Germany.
  - sfn42 3y ago
    I'm not saying it's Germany's fault, we're the ones selling them energy. Or rather a couple rich guys make shitloads of money while everyone else pays for their profits. Nothing against Germany.
    - haakonhr 3y ago
      By "a couple of rich guys" are you referring to the fact that roughly 90% of all power production capacity is owned by the public via municipalities, regions and the state? (https://energifaktanorge.no/en/om-energisektoren/eierskap-i-kraftsektoren/ https://energifaktanorge.no/en/om-energisektoren/eierskap-i-...)
Roark66 3y ago
Exactly. If anything the electricity markets in Europe prove the point they can work.
- devjab 3y ago
  It sort of depends on what you mean by markets. In most places in Europe the production of power is on the market, but the actual power grid is not freely traded. The grid is instead handed out to semi-permanent monopolies that are heavily regulated and controlled by governments and/or non-profit NGOs that are essentially a way we do efficient government in the supply sector. It works, but the benefit isn’t usually to the consumers despite that being the intention. We’re currently seeing a load of insider trading and price manipulation cases roll into court after the price hikes following last years gas craze, and over all, power prices haven’t really gone down. In many ways it’s mostly been a way to divert public money from the public services and into private investors. The way I pay for my electricity is that I pay for the grid, which is the non-freely-privatised part of your electricity market and makes up around 50% of my bill. Before it was privatised it was 90% less expensive. The other 50% is the actual electricity that I buy, we currently buy ours from a company of two people who buy and sell electricity on the European markets. This part is cheaper than it was before it was privatised, but the profits go to those two people and not into advancement of our electric grid. The prices of electricity are also sort of heavily dependent on the government. A huge part of the income you get from running something like a solar plant is often going to be tariff because the EU can’t/won’t allow green energy to be traded freely as it would bankrupt fossil fuel plants, and you sort of need those since they can scale power at any time. Of course if it wasn’t privatised you could spend those tariffs, green euro and other subsidies on actually building the sector like you did with nuclear and fossil fuels. Not that I mind, I work in an investment bank that builds energy plants and sell them, so it’s good money, but it’s also sort of silly financially. Like in Germany you have Tariffs where you only get the tariff if you don’t exceed the production max that’s set politically. So if you produce up to 99.9% you get your free money, but if you produce 100.1% you get zero tariff money. You obviously still get paid from the electricity production at whatever rate it’s capped at, at any given time. Then on top of that the government is paying you to shut down production during peaks so you don’t flood the European grid beyond capacity. Which is fine for us, but also sort of silly for consumers since it’s their tax money that’s basically used to make energy production a lucrative business for us. So yeah, it works, there is a lot of money in it, and a lot of job creation, but it’s not really a net benefit for your consumers.
guappa 3y ago
> I can't remember the last time the grid failed. In Italy, multiple days in July, in some areas.
- Faaak 3y ago
  You're mixing up "the grid" (TSO) with your local delivery (DSO). The first one didn't fail recently. The second one depends on your distribution operator and is not on the market.
cyberax 3y ago
Europe is worse in carbon-free transition. The grid itself is fine, but it's backed by fossil fuels with no way out.
- tuukkah 3y ago
  What do you mean there's no way out? Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels, some are making good progress, in some the progress has recently stalled, some haven't really started yet... Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production).
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive than nuclear power in this case. The problem is called Dunkelflaute. Here's an actual example: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&interval=month&year=2019&month=01&source=sw https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&... - renewable generation mostly disappeared for a week from 18-th to 25-th. These kinds of events happen almost every year, and often more than once. Worst-case modelling shows that Germany can get about a _month_ of sustained Dunkelflaute about once in a century.
    - tuukkah 3y ago
      We are not stuck and these issues are solvable (as much as they exist): trade of electricity with neighbouring countries, storage etc. For example, a simple thing where Germany could try to follow the Nordic countries is heat pump installations to keep houses warm without fossil fuels.

Not sure what OP refers to but it isn't very long ago that we were paying over a dollar per kwh in Norway. We've always had extremely low energy prices due to our abundant hydroelectric power etc, but now it's all being sold to Germany or whatever and we get to buy their coal power for 30 times the price we're used to.

theshrike79 3y ago
Yea, that was when we refused to buy natural gas from a dictator attacking sovereign countries. And due to how the market was built, Germany's over-reliance on Russian gas affected everyone for a good while. On the other hand I've been enjoying pretty much free electricity for about 6 months now. A few rare spikes up to 40c/kWh, but it's mostly been under 1c/kWh.
- yunohn 3y ago
  > A few rare spikes up to 40c/kWh, but it's mostly been under 1c/kWh. The cheapest rate I can get in NL is ~30c/kwh, and that’s with a dynamic price contract. The government has applied an artificial limit of 40c/kwh for 2023, after energy companies here fleeced everyone last year. Unfortunately, it expires by 2024. The worst part is that NL privatized the energy market long ago, to give people “choice” - which has only led to coordinated exorbitant pricing.
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    Finland now has the opposite problem where the market price is negative at times. Our neighbours (Sweden, Estonia) are not able to import as much as we produce excess on good days. Luckily, more cables are being built and the variably cheap electricity attracts new industry that can make use of it (green hydrogen and green steel production).
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    I was one of those people who got fleeced. I moved here in the fall of 2022, right before winter started. My monthly fee to Vattenfall was €400/mo for an "A" rated new build apartment of 90m2. I had just moved and didn't know any better. I knew the war was contributing to energy prices but I had no idea to what extent. Last winter, we kept the heat on to a minimum and tried to keep the lights off. Really, the killer was the price of gas for heating (in-floor) and hot water. But even by comparison, my 20 minute hot shower once every 2-3 days wasn't really the issue. Our "usage" for January was over €550. Luckily, I used basically nothing the first two months I lived here so it averaged out so I didn't need to pay anything. Had I known what I know now, I would have purchased electric space heaters and ran them 24/7... it probably would have been cheaper and I could have walked around my apartment naked while it was -2 outside. I've switched to Tibber (Swedish company I think?) on a variable rate plan and have been much happier. It would be one thing if I could have locked in a rate at Vattenfall, but even that wasn't possible. You still pay out the ass for all of your usage, so I might as well not overpay when it's cheaper to produce. In the meantime, I'm saving some money each month for winter and will still likely invest in a couple of space heaters since the price of natural gas is still pretty high. Now we've seen what some families have had to deal with paying their year-end balances and that is/should be criminal. I've seen people receiving bills for thousands of Euros. Their only crime was living in an older home with 2 kids. Got forbid you want your family to be clean and warm! I understand there is some personal responsibility to be taken, but obviously something went very very wrong.
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
From the market's point of view selling to Germany distributes the goods more efficiently. Germans don't freeze in the Winter, while you don't keep office buildings lit up at night just because electricity is cheap. It feels like you're losing here, but on average everyone wins. (also, there's the whole invasion of Ukraine going on, which has caused a massive disruption to the market)
- guappa 3y ago
  Oh the offices are all on at night. No worries there.
  - baq 3y ago
    Can’t for the life of me understand that particular Scandinavian peculiarity in what would seem otherwise very rational society. I assume it must have been logical or still is?
    - guappa 3y ago
      To be honest I have no idea. I'm baffled/enraged to walk at night and see rows of tall buildings completely lit up with nobody inside. It's basically impossible to see anything in the sky other than Jupiter here, because of the insane light pollution.
    - vegardx 3y ago
      For most homes and offices the primary source of heating is electrical, so in the winter it doens't really make much difference whether you turn the lights off or not, heat is heat. In the summer there's no excuse though. Old habits die hard, or something like that. That said, modern LED-lighting doesn't really use that much electricity, all lights in my apartment use a total of 100Wh, or 75kWh per month. I could turn off all lights in my apartment for a year and it still wouldn't be close to the energy needed for a single transaction on the bitcoin blockchain. But clearly some speculative investment has more utility than me not stumping my toe when going to the bathroom at night.
wewxjfq 3y ago
Norway had trouble with hydro power because of low water levels. Compared to 2021, hydro power was down 10%, imports went up by 60%, and exports remained the same. And for the record, Germany didn't have any trouble with electricity last year, they exported records amounts of it, even increased the usage of gas to meet other countries' demands. Germany exported more electricity to Luxemburg than Norway exported to Germany - and while it seems popular for Norwegians here to claim that Germany wrecked their electricity market, I've yet to see a German claim that little Luxemburg caused electricity prices to explode in Germany.
- sfn42 3y ago
  I'm not saying it's Germany's fault, we're the ones selling them energy. Or rather a couple rich guys make shitloads of money while everyone else pays for their profits. Nothing against Germany.
  - haakonhr 3y ago
    By "a couple of rich guys" are you referring to the fact that roughly 90% of all power production capacity is owned by the public via municipalities, regions and the state? (https://energifaktanorge.no/en/om-energisektoren/eierskap-i-kraftsektoren/ https://energifaktanorge.no/en/om-energisektoren/eierskap-i-...)

Roark66 3y ago

Exactly. If anything the electricity markets in Europe prove the point they can work.

devjab 3y ago
It sort of depends on what you mean by markets. In most places in Europe the production of power is on the market, but the actual power grid is not freely traded. The grid is instead handed out to semi-permanent monopolies that are heavily regulated and controlled by governments and/or non-profit NGOs that are essentially a way we do efficient government in the supply sector. It works, but the benefit isn’t usually to the consumers despite that being the intention. We’re currently seeing a load of insider trading and price manipulation cases roll into court after the price hikes following last years gas craze, and over all, power prices haven’t really gone down. In many ways it’s mostly been a way to divert public money from the public services and into private investors. The way I pay for my electricity is that I pay for the grid, which is the non-freely-privatised part of your electricity market and makes up around 50% of my bill. Before it was privatised it was 90% less expensive. The other 50% is the actual electricity that I buy, we currently buy ours from a company of two people who buy and sell electricity on the European markets. This part is cheaper than it was before it was privatised, but the profits go to those two people and not into advancement of our electric grid. The prices of electricity are also sort of heavily dependent on the government. A huge part of the income you get from running something like a solar plant is often going to be tariff because the EU can’t/won’t allow green energy to be traded freely as it would bankrupt fossil fuel plants, and you sort of need those since they can scale power at any time. Of course if it wasn’t privatised you could spend those tariffs, green euro and other subsidies on actually building the sector like you did with nuclear and fossil fuels. Not that I mind, I work in an investment bank that builds energy plants and sell them, so it’s good money, but it’s also sort of silly financially. Like in Germany you have Tariffs where you only get the tariff if you don’t exceed the production max that’s set politically. So if you produce up to 99.9% you get your free money, but if you produce 100.1% you get zero tariff money. You obviously still get paid from the electricity production at whatever rate it’s capped at, at any given time. Then on top of that the government is paying you to shut down production during peaks so you don’t flood the European grid beyond capacity. Which is fine for us, but also sort of silly for consumers since it’s their tax money that’s basically used to make energy production a lucrative business for us. So yeah, it works, there is a lot of money in it, and a lot of job creation, but it’s not really a net benefit for your consumers.

guappa 3y ago

> I can't remember the last time the grid failed. In Italy, multiple days in July, in some areas.

Faaak 3y ago
You're mixing up "the grid" (TSO) with your local delivery (DSO). The first one didn't fail recently. The second one depends on your distribution operator and is not on the market.

cyberax 3y ago

Europe is worse in carbon-free transition. The grid itself is fine, but it's backed by fossil fuels with no way out.

tuukkah 3y ago
What do you mean there's no way out? Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels, some are making good progress, in some the progress has recently stalled, some haven't really started yet... Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production).
- cyberax 3y ago
  > Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive than nuclear power in this case. The problem is called Dunkelflaute. Here's an actual example: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&interval=month&year=2019&month=01&source=sw https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&... - renewable generation mostly disappeared for a week from 18-th to 25-th. These kinds of events happen almost every year, and often more than once. Worst-case modelling shows that Germany can get about a _month_ of sustained Dunkelflaute about once in a century.
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    We are not stuck and these issues are solvable (as much as they exist): trade of electricity with neighbouring countries, storage etc. For example, a simple thing where Germany could try to follow the Nordic countries is heat pump installations to keep houses warm without fossil fuels.