European Power Prices Go Below Zero Again as Solar Output Surges | Hacker News Reader

European Power Prices Go Below Zero Again as Solar Output Surges

bloomberg.com

22 pointstoomuchtodo14 comments

Solar (and wind) power is great for powering AC in Spain during the summer but sucks for reliably heating homes in Scandinavia in the winter. That's why we in Sweden used to have enough nuclear power combined with hydro to heat the entire country in a co2 clean manner.

Then the greens destroyed the nuclear reactors before their EOL in a collaboration with the social democrats, the "ex" communists, etc.

Now we're rebuilding that nuclear capacity.

We still have enough despite the greens worsening it. Sweden was the largest electricity exporter in Europe during the energy crisis, despite its size. Don't exaggerate.

Winters in Northern Europe are notorious for their lack of wind

Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.

I will say that winds and heating requirements are somewhat correlated, so having some wind production helps balance supply & demand. (Wind will increase convective and conductive heat losses).

They were not being sarcastic. When it gets cold up here the wind power production tends to be low. I have no idea why; complex weather patterns are involved.

And the solar energy production is obviously minimal.

Snow cover increases surface albedo which reduces the day/night temperature differentials that drive wind. Static cloud cover has the same effect.

For the record I was being sarcastic.

If you check the power generation stats for Sweden[1] you’ll see that wind generation was generally higher in winter months than Summer.

[1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/SE-SE2

Are there any places in Europe where small homeowners get exposure to variably-priced electricity? I.e. is it just large commercial consumers who can take advantage of electricity priced below zero, or small players too?

The UK has one player, Octopus Energy, who offers innovative tariffs.

Their SEG (feed in tariff) rates are also about 3x higher than anyone else offers. You can either go for a flat rate of 15p per kWh, or go on their flex tariff where your import and export rates rise and fall with the wholesale rate (up to the energy price cap of 34p per kWh import).

Because net metering is not a thing in the UK, it also means if you're getting solar it makes more sense to get a battery to cover nighttime usage, or to charge with cheaper off-peak energy, or to export shift to when you'll get more bang for your buck.

In the Netherlands there are several day ahead pricing providers for consumers. Quite popular also, but these days perhaps a bit less for solar panel owners. I also used that until a year ago, because on a sunny day I harvest about 150 kWh from the sun.

I know of one consumer who is on the balance market, and uses real time prices. He however is the exception, balance market is only for large customers. Cost to entry is prohibitive.

Yes there are different energy retailers in different markets offering hourly priced tariffs, Tibber being an example. The deployment of the required smart metering varies widely between countries.

> European Power Prices Go Below Zero Again as Solar Output Surges

Do they have electricity on Europa (Jupiter's satellite) ? Because here in EU we do not have negative prices. /s

https://archive.is/TQGCj

I’m surprised there isn’t more push to move the demand to align better with the solar peak.

In the UK AFAIK there’s only one energy provider trying to have tariffs matching the duck curve, and they complain they’re limited by regulated wholesale prices.

I haven’t seen any appliances supporting variable tariffs or even just having an option to shift more power use to mid day.

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