Finnish nuclear plant throttles production as electricity price plunges | Hacker News Reader

Finnish nuclear plant throttles production as electricity price plunges

yle.fi

2 pointsscrlk8 comments

Given the fixed costs are huge and the varriable ones tiny for nuclear, how does this make sense!?

It's a 1.6 GW reactor. When electricity prices go negative, they stand to lose a lot of money in a short amount of time.

I think this misses that that is ALL the nuclear station would lose by remaining online. A comparable coal/gas etc station would lose the same amount PLUS the cost of the fuel.

Also, a gas power station can be started right back up again within about 1h. It takes 12h to get a nuclear station back online (assuming no issues). So the moment they shut down they lose 12h+ of output.

(I cannot find the actual cost. In Denmark prices fell to -41.37E / MWh last week, and on that basis, a 1.6GW station (at max capacity) would lose 66k Euros / h. How much does it cost to just keep the place shut?)

The issue seems to be they can't shut down the hydro generation because of the flooding.

While what you say about "coal/gas etc" is true, it's easier to reduce nuclear power generation than to lower the water levels.

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Finland says coal+oil+gas make up only 5.5% of electricity production in Finland last year. Hydro is 16.3%, wind 14.1%, and nuclear 29.6%. Wind production also doesn't lose by staying online.

This reactor, which just went online this month, once in full operation, "will supply about 14% of Finland's energy at 1,650 megawatts" - https://en.mercopress.com/2023/05/22/finland-connects-nuclea... .

I'm guessing the slowdown was done in part to keep the other generation plans from losing even more money.

Surely there an export market?

Export requires interconnects to reach the demand. There might not be enough surplus capacity on the existing power lines.

Transmission lines lose power over distance, making the effective rate for distant consumption higher than for local consumption. I don't know what the prices are. Wikipedia says at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission :

> Long-distance transmission (hundreds of kilometers) is cheap and efficient, with costs of US$0.005–0.02 per kWh

but it cites an article from 1984. Note that this article says "the price was only 0.3 cents per kWh at its highest", so if $0.02 is valid for now, transmission would be about 5% of the cost, assuming transmission of only a few hundred kms.

Finland exports to Sweden and Estonia. I can't help but wonder if the flood conditions in northern Finland, which lead to increased hydroelectric-generated electricity, are also true in Sweden. A quick news check found https://www.thelocal.se/20230522/relief-in-northern-sweden-a... from three days ago saying "Relief in northern Sweden as flooding shows signs of peaking", so I assume northern Sweden's hydro plants are also in full operation.

This sounds like there isn't much demand within a few hundred kms, so not much opportunity to export.

There's lots of reasons to invest in interconnects. Systems stability, resilience. And avoidance of curtailment.

It's a huge issue here in Oz on the eastern seaboard, the privatisation of power supply wound up making very odd market dynamics around who pays, who benefits. Regulatory oversight is breaking down a bit, as the transition to PV/Wind/Batteries happens. We're getting the new interconnects we need but slowly, and it's fought both by existing incumbents in coal and gas, and NIMBY pressures by landholders (some get revenue for hosting transmission towers, they can offset climate affected farm incomes)

Interconnects are complicated. Frequency management, directionality (some links reverse direction depending on load balances) Surges, inductive load, power, sudden loss.. its like BGP network management but worse. I think some of the slowness is how hard it is, modelling what could possibly go wrong with modifying the current network.

Anyway, the point is, I think you're right: there is a market, but it may be saturated aross links, or cost/price viable markets for their surplus.

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/electricit...

> To achieve its climate and energy goals, Europe needs to improve cross-border electricity interconnections. Connecting Europe's electricity systems will allow the EU to boost its security of electricity supply and to integrate more renewables into energy markets. ...

> The EU has set an interconnection target of at least 15% by 2030 to encourage EU countries to interconnect their installed electricity production capacity. This means that each country should have in place electricity cables that allow at least 15% of the electricity produced on its territory to be transported across its borders to neighbouring countries.

> In 2021, 16 countries reported being on track to reach that target by 2030, or have already reached the target, but more interconnections are needed in some regions.

I think HVDC interconnects are cool. No frequency concerns, and more power efficient at longer distances, especially undersea ones. And I'm amazed at what solid-state can handle these days.

As another concern about interconnects, the Wikipedia page for Icelink [1] - a proposed but unlikely connection between Iceland and Scotland - comments that Icelanders had "concerns over increased domestic energy prices in Iceland".

Seems similar to why Norway decided earlier this year to not go forward with NorthConnect. [2] "Reasons for rejecting the interconnector application includes fears that the Norwegian power grid could be exposed to the power systems of other countries, as well as an imbalance over grid capacity in the north and south of the country." [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelink

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorthConnect

[3] https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/norwegian-government...

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