Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

NNadir

(33,541 posts)
Wed Nov 20, 2013, 03:48 PM Nov 2013

Platt's: German wholesale power prices spike as the wind isn't blowing.

German prompt power prices continued to rise Tuesday to their highest level in over five weeks as wind power output was forecast to drop further with temperatures also falling below seasonal norms, increasing the need for more expensive gas-fired units to come online, a trader said.

Baseload power for day-ahead delivery was last heard OTC before noon London time Eur4.75 or 11% higher at Eur49.75/MWh, while peakload was last heard Eur6.60 or 12% higher at Eur56.75/MWh, the highest OTC closing level since October 9, Platts data shows.

However, Epex Spot settled Wednesday below OTC at Eur47.48/MWh for baseload and Eur59/MWh for peakload, a drop of almost 2% on the day...

...Wind power generation was forecast at to drop below 4 GW for Wednesday's baseload hours, according to a source.

Nuclear availability remains at its full 12.1 GW capacity, while coal plant availability for Wednesday was pegged at 15 GW, with lignite plants adding another 19.7 GW, giving Germany some 47 GW before more expensive gas-fired generation units were needed, EEX transparency data shows.

Temperatures across Germany are forecast to drop just below seasonal averages over the coming days, with Customweather pegging Dusseldorf at exactly the seasonal norm on Wednesday and 3 C below the norm by Friday.

On the near curve, December base fell back 40 euro cent to Eur38.60/MWh.


http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/german-power-prompt-hits-5-week-high-as-low-wind-21810192

This goes back about a week, and I have no idea if the wind is blowing today in Germany.

Germany has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, after Denmark's.

Germany has no plan - because no one knows how to do it - to contain dangerous fossil fuel waste for eternity. Their current approach to dangerous fossil fuel waste is to dump it in humanity's favorite waste dump, the planetary atmosphere.

By the end of 2015, Germany will have added more than 7 GW of new coal capacity, with coal already producing, this year, 2013, more than 50% of German electricity. It appears they will now be adding more dangerous natural gas to their mix, because of low temperatures and the unavailability of the wind and the sun.

Have a nice evening.

9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

NNadir

(33,541 posts)
2. Wow! It's wonderfully "renewally." We just need 50 million Germans to drive around in circles...
Thu Nov 21, 2013, 01:28 PM
Nov 2013

...in Sumatran biodiesel cars near wind farms and all of our problems will be solved.

PADemD

(4,482 posts)
3. Why the snark? Did you read the article at the link?
Thu Nov 21, 2013, 01:41 PM
Nov 2013

"His project proposed integrating turbines into the barriers between highway lanes that would harness the wind generated by passing cars to create energy."

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-01-31/harnessing-the-wind-power-of-the-highwaybusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

 

Nihil

(13,508 posts)
7. There's a reason why that 2007 "proposal" was in Business Week ...
Fri Nov 22, 2013, 06:22 AM
Nov 2013

... and not a science or engineering journal (and also that it is a six year old "project&quot .

Clue:
>> "His project proposed integrating turbines into the barriers between highway lanes
>> that would harness the wind generated by passing cars to create energy."

Only someone looking for funding from gullible investors wishing to appear "green"
would pretend that stealing energy from every car in order to inefficiently convert it
to electricity and inefficiently transfer it back to wasteful consumers was a "good thing".



The Laws of Thermodynamics: far better enforced than any financial rules to prevent
scammers & frauds ...

kristopher

(29,798 posts)
4. Understanding pro-nuclear critics of the Energiewende
Thu Nov 21, 2013, 01:56 PM
Nov 2013

This speaks generally to the lack of credibility earned by the pro-nuclear critic's dishonesty about Germany's 13 year old decision to phase out nuclear power.

Responding to Forbes:

Understanding Germany's energy transition
Good for democracy, bad for proponents of nuclear


Forbes is back with a technocratic rebuttal of the Energiewende. Unfortunately, despite the article's length, it once again focuses on solar, not renewables, and embarrassingly fails to understand why Germany is pursuing this transition (the word the American can’t think of is “democracy”). For my regular readers, I try to focus only on things I have not said countless times before....


http://www.renewablesinternational.net/good-for-democracy-bad-for-proponents-of-nuclear/150/537/74736/



Understanding pro-nuclear critics of the Energiewende
Emotional technocrats not honestly engaging


Criticism of Germany's energy transition comes from various quarters, and much of it is justified. But no camp produces lengthier, more obviously flustered arguments than those from proponents of nuclear. And no one refuses an honest discussion more. They present our charts as their own new findings – when in fact, these are challenges Germany has already identified. It's working on solutions now.

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/emotional-technocrats-not-honestly-engaging/150/522/74738/


The OP is a good example of that dishonesty. Wholesale power prices ALWAYS fluctuate based on specific conditions like weather. To paint that type of market activity as anything other than bustiness-as-usual is to deliberately distort the facts.

Power prices
German utility reduces retail rate


The country's fifth largest power provider has announced a minor reduction in retail rates for its nearly one million household customers. The reasons the firm indicated for the reduction apply to all power providers in the country.

EWE, Germany's fifth largest power provider, announced this week that its roughly 900,000 household customers will see their retail rates reduced by 0.36 cents per kilowatt-hour. The news is a further indication that retail power rates in Germany are stabilizing despite the relatively great increase in the renewables surcharge of roughly one cent.

The firm says it was able to reduce its retail rates nonetheless mainly because of two factors: lower wholesale prices and lower grid charges. My regular readers will know that renewable electricity has greatly reduced the price of wholesale power in Germany, but that those prices are only passed on to retail consumers with a delay of a year or two because power purchase agreements generally have a term of around 18 months.

The new grid fees were only made public a few weeks ago. As my readers will also remember, Germany has ironically made the firms that consume the most electricity (and hence need to grid the most) exempt from grid fees – something that has drawn the ire of Brussels, which (correctly) considers the policy illegal state aid for local industry. But before the German government could react (after all, the CDU and SPD are still in coalition negotiations), a court in Düsseldorf ruled that the exemptions are illegal for more than 200 of these firms...

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-utility-reduces-retail-rate/150/537/74600/


Fraunhofer study
Renewables becoming competitive with conventional power


Researchers at Europe's largest solar research center have updated their cost curves for wind, solar, power from biogas, and different types of coal power. The findings may surprise some readers, but they are in line with other recent assessments. The writing is on the wall for conventional power... economically.

Fraunhofer ISE has produced a new version of its chart forecasting the cost of power generation up to 2030. The old one, which you can see here in the version we did for EnergyTransition.de, compared the cost of various types of renewables (a range of prices for photovoltaics along with onshore and offshore wind) to the cost of fossil and nuclear power in Germany.

The new one shows a similar price range for photovoltaics (the slanted black lines between the two yellow lines), and the blue shaded area between around 0.05 and 0.11 euros represents the price of onshore wind going forwards. Clearly, the researchers expect the cost of PV to continue to drop, but onshore wind has basically become as inexpensive as it can be already...



http://www.renewablesinternational.net/renewables-becoming-competitive-with-conventional-power/150/537/74751/

German retail rates to rise by 3%

German consumer portals say that retail rates will basically be stable in 2014 even though the renewables surcharge is rising by a cent per kWh.

After the short lived articles series entitled “Do the math!” and “German industry fleeing,” we can now start a new series called “I told you so.” This time, we hear that only a fifth of Germany’s roughly 1,000 retail power providers are planning to raise their retail rates. The price hikes were found to range on average from 3.2 percent (collated by Verivox) to 3.2 percent (Check 24) and 3.1 percent (TopTarif).

German media are reporting that the price stability is “remarkable” in light of the increase in the renewables surcharge, which alone raises the retail rate by more than 3%.

But readers of Renewables International have seen this coming since August, when we reported on lower retail rates in Austria. And in October, even after the hike in the renewables surcharge had been announced, we reported on the first signs of stable prices. Those who have been reading us since 2010, when we were founded, know that we have been covering the lower wholesale rates as a result of renewable power all along.

In all likelihood, power rates will remain stable going forward. The cost of new renewable power is already minimal, and the new coalition will cut back industry exemptions that have shifted the burden to retail ratepayers...

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-retail-rates-to-rise-by-3/150/537/74794/



NNadir

(33,541 posts)
5. It's not like pro-nuclear critics of the German scheme to dump dangerous fossil fuel waste into...
Thu Nov 21, 2013, 10:30 PM
Nov 2013

...the atmosphere really give a shit at this point what the so called "renewable scammers" think about what motivates us. In order to understand us one would need to be scientifically literate, and there are zero coal pushing "renewables will save us" types who qualify.

If one of these faith based oblivious proponents is here to prove by distraction that the wind is blowing in energy and the fucking expensive wobbly trash is producing electricity, it would hardly be a surprise. The entire set is hallucinating apparently.

We concede fully that fear and ignorance have won.

Anyone who understand numbers understands as much. 2013 is going to be the worst year ever observed for increases in dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere, since 1998, when the dumb Lovins trained idiot Joe Romm was running the climate office.

And let's be clear on something: In 1998, except for working to destroy the world's largest, by far climate change gas free and thus destabilizing the South Asian climate, the carbon dioxide pulse in 1998 involved fires burning huge stretches of Indonesia, where the renewable energy business was busy rototilling rain forest to make palm oil plantations to run another toxic, delusional scheme.

Thus in dangerous fossil fuel waste terms, 2013 may prove to be the worst year ever.

The figures for 2013 increases are published every damn day by the people at the Mauna Loa observatory.

They speak louder than all the evasions of the coal pushing anti-nukes ever would.

Here they are: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html

For October 2013 we have 2.65 ppm over October 2012, and that's hardly the worst month in 2013.

About 400 people will die in the next hour from air pollution, not counting climate related deaths.

Of course, the response will be to have yet another ass burn more coal, gas and oil to carry on with a tortured proof that someone, anyone, died from radiation at Fukushima.

History, should it continue exist, will never forgive the fools who brought us here.

Have a nice evening.

kristopher

(29,798 posts)
6. "Emotional technocrats not honestly engaging"
Thu Nov 21, 2013, 10:51 PM
Nov 2013
Understanding pro-nuclear critics of the Energiewende
Emotional technocrats not honestly engaging


As always, you've provided an excellent choice of material that more than aptly demonstrates the point; "Emotional technocrats not honestly engaging".



Nuclear is a trivial source of final energy.

 

Nihil

(13,508 posts)
8. Funny how you repeatedly shoot yourself in the foot in the attempt to attack your nemesis ...
Fri Nov 22, 2013, 06:33 AM
Nov 2013

Your first image (from the Book of Jacobson) ...



... shows how arbitrary your/his choice of "good" vs "bad" options are.
Including Hyd-BEV whilst excluding CCS-Bev & Nuc-BEV despite the latter being at the same level
of "weighted goodness" is indicative of a certain emotional attachment to the whole bucket of BEV
as without the massive renewable energy input from hydro, your/his BEV promotion is truly
dead in the water - your second graph showed that.


Your final image ...



... shows that your pet hate (nuclear power stations) generate three times more electricity than
wind PLUS solar PLUS biomass PLUS geothermal.

"Emotional technocrats not honestly engaging"

Again, (sorry NNadir & co) I don't want to see any more nuclear power stations built so don't bother
with your usual baseless smears. I just don't like to see non-arguments used to smother arguments.

NNadir

(33,541 posts)
9. Germany is building coal plants and all the cut and paste unoriginal posts in the world...
Sat Nov 23, 2013, 12:41 PM
Nov 2013

...will not change that fact, and the fact that the accumulation of dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere, the dumping ground for German energy waste, is happening at the highest rate ever observed.

Cutting and pasting a stupid pop psychology fantasy that the writers at Bloomberg, for an example, are lying when reporting German activities, will not make these coal plants disappear:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/merkel-facing-power-dilemma-as-coal-plants-open-energy-markets.html

These coal plants will kill people whenever they operate, as any one not living in a delusional cult can easily discern.

All this denialist bullshit reminds me of the absurd claim that nuclear power is "expensive" and the failed so called "renewable energy" industry is cheap, but fails to account for the fact that France's electricity costs about half of German electricity, and less than half of Denmark's.

http://www.energy.eu/

The "Alice in Wonderland" fantasies of the "renewables will save us" fools may have won over a foolish public, but for humanity, and indeed the entire biosphere, will suffer enormously for this idiocy.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»Platt's: German wholesa...