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Europe faces an unusual problem: ultra-cheap energy
- h2odragon 2y agoThe efficiencies of energy storage methods kinda suck but with enough input who cares?
- toomuchtodo 2y agohttps://archive.today/XnsUO https://archive.today/XnsUO
- moralestapia 2y agoThey can then build out some unusual kinds of batteries. See, https://nickgrossman.xyz/bitcoin-as-battery https://nickgrossman.xyz/bitcoin-as-battery Forget about the bitcoin side of it, I wouldn't agree with that, lol. The story about Iceland's aluminum smelters is a real eye opener.
- gregwebs 2y agoThe problem for aluminum or bitcoin is that the electricity from wind & solar, unlike geothermal, is variable. It will alter their economics to shutdown operations when it is cloudy and the wind stops blowing, etc. It really only works if they can have guaranteed access to power for some time frame and that will require a reversible form of energy storage (that's what a real battery is) or really good transmission. GPUs are hard to come by now so miners probably want power 24/7, but if power becomes the biggest constraint then it could make sense to have mining operations run idle for long stretches and use them as batteries.
- moralestapia 2y agoAluminum and bitcoin are not the only two products that are possible ...
- superkuh 2y agoSurplus energy? Seems like if it was really that cheap high energy use commerce and industry would eventually move in. Weird though, most Europeans I talk to complain about extremely high energy prices and actually go out of their way to shut their computers/etc off and buy low value high efficiency computers. I suppose the utilities are not passing on the low rates.
- krzyk 2y agoI've read somewhere (but I can't find the source) that in Denmark and UK the prices do reflect the amount of wind (maybe also solar) energy.
- js8 2y agoThis could be an explanation: https://diem25.org/time-blow-electricity-markets/ https://diem25.org/time-blow-electricity-markets/
- zrn900 2y ago> Weird though, most Europeans I talk to complain about extremely high energy prices and actually go out of their way to shut their computers/etc off and buy low value high efficiency computers. I suppose the utilities are not passing on the low rates That's right, and that's exactly why the article is lobbyist bullsh*t.
- RUnconcerned 2y agoThe message must not be getting through to the grid operators, then.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoGrid operators are aware, transmission and storage take time to build, and will always be behind renewables deployments due to the deployment time delta. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720183 (thread)
- toomuchtodo 2y agoAdditional citations: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Europes-Negative-Power-Prices-Highlight-the-Need-for-Energy-Storage-Investment.html https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Europes-N... ("Europe’s Negative Power Prices Highlight the Need for Energy Storage Investment") https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-solar-power-surge-hits-prices-exposing-storage-needs-2024-06-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-solar-power-... ("Europe's solar power surge hits prices, exposing storage needs")
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- r0ckarong 2y agoMired by decades ob lobby politics, we are stuck behind the solution to one of our biggest problems. The irony.
- rafaelero 2y agoThey should incentivize homes to install batteries. That could absorve energy when price is low and relieve pressure when price is high.
- antwerp1 2y agoSeems like a good time to invest in Spain’s solar.. Perhaps they can export stored sunlight to their neighbors up north..
- l5870uoo9y 2y ago> Ultra-low—and indeed negative—prices suggest that it is not being put to good use at present, reflecting failures in both infrastructure and regulation. The fundamental issue is that you can't control when and how much solar or wind energy to produce and it can't be stored at anywhere the scale needed.
- bjornsing 2y agoAs I understand it the negative prices in Germany are caused by stupid regulations that keeps the compensation to small scale solar power providers constant, regardless of the market price. I assume German tax payers are on the hook for the difference.
- ragebol 2y agoIt certainly is the case in the Netherlands, which has the most or 2nd most Watt peak installed capacity per capita in the world. For households, there still is net metering. A law to abolish that was rejected in February or so. So, the energy companies came with a penalty for excess power returned, for power beyond the net metering. So it you use 3000 kWh in a year, but put 4000kWh on the grid in a year, you pay a fine for the 1000 kWh leftover. Details vary per company and I'm not 100% up to speed on them as I have a dynamic tariff and thus those shenanigans don't apply to me. The incentive is to self consume as much as possible, but the winter/summer difference makes that hard. IMO, the net metering is still very generous, maybe a better policy would be to just pay market crate for any power delivered to the grid.
- IshKebab 2y agoA big part of the problem in the UK at least is we pay the same price for energy no matter where it is generated, but the grid doesn't have enough capacity to actually transport all the wind power from Scotland to the south. They'll sort it out eventually.
- john61 2y agoThere are flexible consumer energy tariffs based on the spot market + fee now. But although you even get negative prices, I was surprised that those tariffs are not economical for me. I have 2 heat pumps that are responsible for 75% of my energy consumption. I could optimize their working hours to low/negative hours by software and work with the thermal inertia of the house / water tank. At the moment it is not worth the effort, a monthly floating tariff is more or less the same. Especially because the net fees are not based on the spot market and are 50% of the energy bill. This is a political failure.
- afiori 2y agoTo be fair if consumers where to en masse react to spot prices then the grid would open itself to gamestop-style failures. The mistake the big investors made with GameStop was assuming that retail investors would not coordinate, so when meme stocks started the big investors found themselves in unexpected waters. If a sizable chunk of heat pump where to use the same algorithm to react to spot prices then the grid would have to adjust how spot prices are calculated. It can be done, but I suspect the grid will want to retain some level of control (eg by providing you with the algorithm)
- john61 2y agoI am not going to allow the grid to control by heating and warm water.
- _nalply 2y agoWhen everybody cranks up their usage when prices fall and stop when prices rise then the whole system might be unstable wildly swinging between low and high usage. Added with natural changes from solar and wind it's a tough nut to crack.
- afiori 2y agoIn particular I suspect that even the most reactive energy sources (which I suspect are fossil fuels) takes minutes to scale up or down to follow demand.
- pajko 2y agoExcept in Hungary. Hungary is fucked. Solar was punished for years and just recently got promoted when Orban's friends and acquaintances got into the business. Wind turbines are still banned, while the technology gets better and better and nowadays pretty neat household setups could be installed. EU level regulations should be put in effect instead of state level ones to remove this kind of games.
- sixtram 2y agoWelcome home, my friend. Hungary always sucks, but at least now we are also last in consumption in the EU, time to catch up with Bulgaria.
- yuumei 2y agoI'm using Octopus mentioned in the article, I got paid £0.67 to use 12.62kWh over 4 hours due to spare energy in the UK on 8th June. So not really worth it financially, but the ability is there already to help even out the load.
- nextweek2 2y agoYou didn’t just get 67p, you also got the utility of that energy. For my EV, that’s a good 40 miles of range. That’s about £8 in equivalent petrol cost.
- Ekaros 2y agoFundamental issue is errors in subsidising. Renewables should not get subsidies when prices are negative.
- AndrewDucker 2y agoThe problem with this is that it removes the incentive to build more solar. The good thing is that it increases the incentive to build storage.
- zrn900 2y agoBullsh*t. Im not seeing that cheap energy anywhere here. The Economist has become an economic tabloid. Or maybe it always was, and we didn't notice.
- 7e 2y agoHydrogen electrolysis is the answer here.