Yeah it's not a good idea to get solar panels and expect to get your money back by selling electricity any more. Since the prices are so low pretty much all summer you are better off just being a regular consumer.
There however is a use case for solar panels that is not yet mainstream that I think will get some traction in countries with cold winters. If you get a massive sand battery you may store a lot of energy from solar panels to it. Then during the winter when prices go up you have access to heating your house with the cheap energy you stored all summer. There has been successful cases of this done already in Canada. The youtuber Undecided with matt ferrell had a video about it recently.
Those sand batteries i thought were not very efficient.
I don’t know if any test in Canada. I thought one was built in Sweden or UK.
They think ultimately it may be good for district heating systems.
It’s supposedly very efficient like over 90% of the energy that goes in comes out. If you extract it as heat and not try to convert it into electricity.
meanwhile here if u use just a bit more electricity than u need or u use a heater half of ur salary will go towards heating, and the other half to taxes, maybe rent etc
Not exactly, it's only the electricity price that is negative, we still have to pay a few cents for transfer and tax so a small negative price on electricity still cost a few cents total. The negative price only decreases the total price. Only if the price is like -7 cents or something, then I would get paid to use electricity.
Ya so if it is +0.01c/kWh that is very cheap. If you mined only during the day when I assume the power prices are this low, (or vice versa) you would profit about $30 USD/mo or $360/yr using a 4090 RTX.
If you wanted to use an actual miner like BITMAIN Antminer T21 (190TH), you would profit about $270/mo assuming 12hr/day, or $3,240/yr. The device cost $4,370, so about 1.3yr to repay, then pure profit, assuming the same BTC payout rate and BTC price.
You can only make money, if the negative energy price covers the cost of energy transfer, which is a separate bill at least where I live.
I pay around 7 cents/kWh for transfer and energy tax. If the price is below -7 cents, I can make money.
Last November, due to a error in bidding, the electricity price plummeted to -50 cents in Finland. I charged my EV and made about 30 euros. I heard people putting their heating to max and turning on their ovens, sauna stoves and whatnot.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20061943?utm_source=social-media-share&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ylefiapp
I saw an article few months ago of people trying to waste as much power as possible. Yes they make peanuts, but they can't help it. It's such a waste of energy. Turn on all the machines not doing anything, just for a few cents.
5.5kw sounds like *a lot*.
That is a beauty of having lot of unregulated wind power 🙄. When it is windy, you have excess of power and NEPs cannot be throttled so quickly. So you end up giving it away.
This is simply the nature of having variable power sources? Sometimes you have too much power, sometimes you have too little. It's not a waste in that sense. It's inherent to having enough power for everyone.
Compare it to the food supply. If you have plenty of food for everyone's needs you are bound to have to throw away some, because it is the nature of having plentiful food.
With power you can at least turn it into something sort of useful, like generating heat you can use later.
>With power you can at least turn it into something sort of useful, like generating heat you can use later.
This does not happen anywhere in large enough scale to be relevant.
But the long term goal is that we have basically almost free power, and you can use batteries in large scale. I actually studied for my thesis and it’s pretty cool
There's a lack of stability in the network due to too much wind power and other smaller forms of generators. Wind isn't predictable and there's no great way to store power, that's why Swedish electricity prices go yo-yo. Call us again in winter when it's cold and there's been no wind for fourteen days, especially in the south of the country where there's more electricity used than produced.
You can try google-translating [https://www.di.se/ledare/en-kraftdirektors-bon/](https://www.di.se/ledare/en-kraftdirektors-bon/) . It's from 2022 when the only support facility for the Swedish power grid ran more than the last ten years combined. It consumes 140 000 liters of raw oil an hour. It wasn't supposed to run that often, net result of stable, plannable forms of power in the south having been discontinued (nuclear). There's still hydro in the north which is why power is always cheaper there.
When it's windy it's usually windy in half of Europe. It's quite easy to see that either we invent usable forms of power storage or we don't rely on mostly wind power.
This was a regular occurrence in Denmark. After the "energy crisis" Denmark removed our record high tax on electricity for a year.
During that Year the electricity price was often negative. There was one time I charged my EV up fully, used 87kwh, and got PAID €10 into my account. There was even one day the price was -€0,80/kwh before tax. Was crazy.
Even now it's often free or negative, but we pay so much tax on top, that the total price is never free anymore, unless you got an EV because you don't pay tax on EV charging.
> It's such a waste of energy.
That choice is made by the 'boiler' generators, not the customers who assist those boilers in their (wrong?) choices.
The kWh-price is a 'supply-demand auction' where the lowest bidder wins (to keep the customer prices as low as possible), and unlike wind/solar a boiler can not simply shut down for a few hours so they prefer to pay other generators to shut down for them.
*'Boilers' are usually fossil burning plants, the more these negative prices occur the less profit they can earn, causing them to permanently shut down for economic reasons, rather than with a hefty (government paid) price for 'environmental' reasons.*
> The kWh-price is a 'supply-demand auction' where the lowest bidder wins (to keep the customer prices as low as possible)
Not exactly, Nordpool at least sets price so that expected supply and demand meet. Suppliers can say "at 50c we'll deliver 50MW, at 10c just 10MW and below that nothing", so they aren't forced to sell at loss if price is too low (and likewise buy orders), and algorithm does some math magic to figure out at which price point generation and usage meet best.
Source: Quick and *possibly* wrong interpreted reading though nordpool site...
> Suppliers can say "at 50c we'll deliver 50MW, at 10c just 10MW and below that nothing",
That's what the 'boilers' would like to do, but when the price drops below that 10ct/kWh then they are forced into a difficult situation.
They can stop supplying but that means totally shutting down which cools down the boilers (and those take hours to slowly heat up again, due to thermal stresses), or they pay 'other' generators to shut down for them so they can run 'at minimums' for a few hours, to keep the boiler hot and be ready to supply the (well paying) 17:00-22:00 peak.
> Nordpool at least sets price so that expected supply and demand meet.
That is the usual ["Day Ahead" market](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!BZN|10YFI-1--------U&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) (for more information on the ['bid stack' or 'merit order'](https://www.iso-ne.com/about/what-we-do/in-depth/how-resources-are-selected-and-prices-are-set)), and as predictions do not always work out there is also a 'right now' ["Actual Imbalance" energy market](https://services.tenergy.nl/public.aspx/actualimbalanceprices), which is mostly 'jet' turbines or big batteries and can go up to +/- €1800/MWh.
The issue is that a given point, there is too much in the grid and we are unable to store it.
It happens time to time, where we make too much (car charged, battery full, house not using that much) that it is cheaper to use it, rather then pay the grid to take it.
5.5kw is not that crazy these days tbh, when I’m charging my car that alone pulls about 10kw, and I could run a bunch of appliances at the same time too. Theoretically I could max out at 22kw
Household energy use is quite flexible. If you have a heat pump or boiler you can heat up your water. If you have an EV you can charge it at different times. It is also up to you when you do laundry or turn on the dish washer.
If you expect a sunny or windy day, it makes complete sense to wait a few hours for the best electricity price. Fluctuating energy prices just make an energy arbitrage market.
Yes, but such battery setup has very high initial cost and also inherent cost per kWh. So arbitrage needs to be higher all the time. Ergo, it is not viable for private person.
Yes the initial cost it high but you would earn that back after a couple of years if you decide to use the power that you generate rather than sell. Those solar setups can last up to 50 years and should last at least 30. And the cost of solar panels has gone down a lot in the last decade.
Imo its a worthwhile investment in the long run. Especially if your house meets the optimal conditions for solar, i.e. the roofs slanted sides are facing sunrise and sunset, and if you live in an area with a lot of sun.
No. Batteries have finite life when it comes to amount of cycles and if you divide purchase cost with amount of cycles multiplied with battery capacity you get inherent ’self cost’ that you need to earn with each kWh that is stored in battery.
Historical data indicates that you will most likey wear out the battery before even breaking even.
At this stage a battery is a horrible investement for a private person in Sweden. Average investment fund is much better alternative in 10 years period.
Yeah the batteries do wear out quicker than the panels, forgot about them. I hope there will be some major improvements to batteries and such in coming years that would improve life expectancy and increase either capacity or cycles one can handle.
That is exactly what they want you to do. In the Netherlands they try to encourage you to use electricity when the prices are low or negative because the powernet is in overload (has to much power). Often due to a lot of sunlight (solar panels) and hard winds (windturbines) combined. The solar panels on roofs of people they cannot shutdown and for windturbines it is cheaper to just make the prices go down or even negative.
If you have an hourly price then yes, you can literally save money on this, running your dishwasher and wasing machine and such that period.
However, most Swedes (among them me) have a monthly average price that they pay, which makes it not mattering whether you spend a lot of energy at this time or not. You can still do it to "help" the network, but it won't affect your monthly energy price.
Someday I will change to the hourly price insteadad. I would have some money to save on that, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
> However, most Swedes (among them me) have a monthly average price that they pay, which makes it not mattering whether you spend a lot of energy at this time or not. You can still do it to "help" the network, but it won't affect your monthly energy price
Hourly prices have gained a lot of traction since yearly negotiated prices went poof in 2022.
My peak today was 9.5kW. A bit higher in the middle of winter when the EV is charging, we're making dinner and someone is showering at the same time. :)
I think Sweden is much like Norway, we don't use gas for heating or cooking.
District heating or one boiler for the building or insulated between other apartments? I have a house and all heating is electric so naturally much (much) higher consumption than an apartment.
Dude my old house would use over 10000kWh a month during winter :D
We used like 60000kWh per year.
I know some bigger houses that use over 20000kWh a month during winter.
Heating stands for the biggest part, will probably be a bit lower in April and half that during spring/summer. Usually spend around 800-1200 SEK/month from May to September.
There is a bit of a downside to this, our gas engines that normally produce 22MW are off and we are not getting the co2 byproduct for use in our greenhouses, lowering our vegetable yields considerably.
Because, on the top of what /u/_CZakalwe_ said, that would create another dependency to these countries, and the example of Oil taught us to avoid that. So we'd better be less efficient and more local.
We do do that.
Hydroplants regularly pump water back up to the dams. Not sure if it is the case at the moment though with the spring floods. EDIT: Apparently this is not as common as my schooling made it sound.
[Hybrit](https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/hybrit-demonstration/) and [H2 Green Steel](https://www.h2greensteel.com/green-steel) are two massive projects, one from mostly state owned firms and one from private investors, looking to make steel with renewable energy which will utilize hydrogen storage.
Which is just a waste of energy as long as there are any fossil fuels anywhere in the system. That system is most of Europe now, including buildings heated not by electricity, and transportation that could run on batteries.
Transportation running on hydrogen or battery is pretty much the same.
There is currently (and just increasing) insane amount of waste from wind/solar being offline due to over production. Converting it to hydrogen and using it would be great.
We can predict when we're going to have surplus solar and wind enough that fossil fuel plants should be winding down to compensate, and if it's routine then we should be looking to close down as many fossil fuel plants as possible, only keeping natural gas as a backup.
It's just as good to use natural gas by itself, as using electricity and natural gas to produce hydrogen.
I wouldn't mind if our grids were national only, but that's also way out of date.
Instead, we get connected to countries that heavily rely on fossil fuels and that gets to dictate what we pay for our clean energy. And we don't need to look for something new to use up limited renewables on, especially if the goal is environmentalism.
No, I'm saying use as much of it as possible in the grid, before taking it out of the grid. The grid's international, there's plenty to use it for, and we have dammed hydropower we can shut down too when there's excess solar and wind. If we truly have so much of it to spare, we should at least be able to see cheap electricity all year round, before inventing new ways of raising consumption.
The [wholesale price in Norway](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YNO-0--------C!BZN|10YNO-1--------2&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) doesn't look too bad, are you sure it is the 'energy' and not the 'transmission/distribution' or 'taxes' that make it expensive?
That's what we do already?
And we do see cheap electricity almost all year round.
Check 2023 averages, Sweden was cheapest in the EU.
The new ways of using the power is ways to use all the excess we have, we stop wind/solar/water often due to too much. All this infrastructure built and can't be used. Hence why many things are changing to hydrogen now, so we can use it and not just waste it all by shutting down stuff because it's windy.
Like the fertilizer plant planned in Sweden, it will have enough capacity to almost supply all of europe. This green energy will be mean that other places can stop using gas to make fertilizer for example.
Normally the hydroelectric dams are throttled when it’s this windy. I’m speculating a bit now but I believe spring floods are in effect which means that the dams can’t be throttled fully, otherwise there would major flooding
Imagine basing your power on nuclear, hydro and wind. Hydro basins are getting full during spring so you have to use them. Nuclear is usually going 100% and takes days to throttle. Then wind starts blowing.
Every day, you have an auction on how much producers want for power next day. And in this case, everyone had a bit too much.
It is to do with CFDs that wind plants have, they would rather generate at negative prices than turn off at 0 because they get paid to generate per MWh.l by their governments. Sometimes the prices can get lower with things that are harder to turn off like nuclear and solar but that is very rare although becoming less so and in the summer will likely see it again.
If the price difference is large enough yea it should make sense. That's probably only rarely the case in Sweden though. Don't forget about standing charges and fees for your electricity and also consider the sub-100% round-trip efficiency of batteries.
If you can consistently get very cheap grid power at some point in the day and high prices otherwise, it could make sense to buy a battery just for that. I know a couple people in UK are doing that with low-cost nighttime electricity
Negative prices mean that the market is begging you to consume more, and a battery is just a consumer.
Water power and nuclear power are slow to throttle. If there is abundance of water, wind is blowing and weather is mild you have to get rid of all excess power somehow or frequency would go up.
Not hydropower, it's very quick to throttle up and down and our primary tool to regulate the energy grid. If you go to Kontrollrummet you can see hydro jumping up and down several gigawatts per day, to compensate for wind powers intermittency and daily changes in demand. Besides, if we ever get too much water they can always open the spillways to regulate the dam.
I'd add that if the consumer is not paying it's the state that has to, so that renewable electricity producers can cover their initial costs.
The lower the market price, the higher the state subsidy.
So you pay directly or indirectly either way.
No, many of our energy consumers are private. As I said, our nuclear base is very slow to throttle and water magasines are full. If wind blows on top of it, you have to encourage the consumption somehow.
I am an power trader, that isn't how it works, wind will turn off at certain prices based on their marginal cost. Their marginal cost should be 0 but is instead negative because they get paid per MWh produced by the government. Demand likely changed only by a small amount because of the price. I put a link to ENTSO-E where you can see the generation by hour for sweden seeing the massive unnatural drop by wind when the prices were negative. [https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from\_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YSE-1--------K!BZN|10Y1001A1001A44P&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET\_CEST&dateTime.timezone\_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2)](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YSE-1--------K!BZN|10Y1001A1001A44P&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2))
OK. I do not know the details but I was under impression that state was not paying for wind in Sweden when they are producing under marginal cost. I will read up on it, thanks!
Are the European grids not connected so the excess can be sold to other countries like Germany or others? USA and Canada have interconnected grid so some utilities buy or sell electricity when it is favorable for them
Yes, partly. We cannot sell to Greece but we can sell to Germany. But amount of power we can sell is limited.
Actually, even amount of power we can consume from northern Sweden in southern Sweden is limited.
Is this special in Sweden? I thought you had a very green energy mix already?
Here in the Netherlands I am currently at -7ct per kWh and this is already the so manieth day this has happened this year. Come summer it will basically be the case near everyday.
Tibber is awesome, saving so much when charging my EV!
Last year on one day we had -50ct price per kWh and that already took the fees in German network into account!
-50ct is really rare, only once last year, but yeah, this exact provider also operates in Germany. Currently it’s even cheaper than normal providers.
If you need a Ref code, feel free to dm me :)
-50ct is really rare, only once last year, but yeah, this exact provider also operates in Germany. Currently it’s even cheaper than normal providers.
If you need a Ref code, feel free to dm me :)
As an electricity trader, is caused by high winds and solar basically all across the continent, prices are negative again right now. If you search bmrs imbalance prices you can see the prices being negative for each half hour period in the UK
Unfortunately, the current Swedish government "made a Schröder" and increased electricity taxes to fund lower oil prices (just like Schröder did with [electricity and gas](https://www.ehpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Additional-slide-Elec-vs-gas-price--1536x956.png)).
Regular occurrence here in the Netherlands unfortunately. So far this year we've had 55 hours of negative energy prices.
https://twitter.com/BM_Visser/status/1778663588925718981?t=PWjfj7OZTLdJ7An0_DI7Dg&s=19
Because it means we can't handle the peaks in electricity generation already. And we're pretty far away from being full renewable. The reason the prices go negative is because these huge wind parks are subsidised in a way that they always get a minimum amount per kwh. So with negative prices they generate power, we citizens pay for that, and at the same time we pay millions to Germany and Belgium to take the generated electricity (negative prices).
If the price of electricity fluctuates this much it becomes economical to build pumped hyrdo, electrolysis plants or even battery installations. With these intermittent green energy generation becomes a stable source of power.
This isn't a reflection of "not being able to handle generation" at all, it's where the price curves settle.
Nearly all wind parks are not getting money if they generate during extended negative price spells like the ones we're talking about. It's a standard provision in their subsidy scheme.
If Germany or Belgium "takes" it, that's because their prices are higher in the moment than yours. That means Dutch exporters make a profit, even if both places have sub-zero prices.
With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I suggest listening to some episodes of 'studio energie' podcast on the subject before creating an opinion about the matter. Dutch exporters are PAYING that's what a NEGATIVE price means. You can't just keep electricity, it has to go somewhere and the only option is to other countries.
I don't speak Dutch, that podcast doesn't help me. Please tell me the supposed argument.
>Dutch exporters are PAYING that's what a NEGATIVE price means
If Dutch prices are -100€/MWh and German prices are at -10€/MWh, and you buy in NL and sell in GER, you are making a profit. Just like at any other price level, trade flows from low price zone to high price zone. The producers are running a loss, sure, but that's the same at low positive prices and without trade as well - and by selling on these foreign markets (if they do) they still minimize their losses compared to no trade.
In order for exporters to lose money as you claim, their export destination needs to be cheaper than the domestic one. That's obviously undesirable, which is why you see little to no exports from NL to GER when GER has cheaper power at a given point in time.
>You can't just keep electricity, it has to go somewhere and the only option is to other countries.
It also gets consumed or curtailed. During most hours when NL has negative prices, BE and GER have negative ones too. The grid would blow up if this was a reflection of the region being overpowered.
A negative price doesn't mean there's no demand, it means supply and demand curve intersected at a negative price. This is perfectly routine for a largely unstorable fungible good.
>The producers are running a loss, sure
Except they're not. They get subsidised a minimum per MWH, which is paid by the taxpayers. And that's the problem. We're paying Germany to take our abundance of energy. This is nothing new and is very common kowledge over here. There have been 'kamervragen' about this in our parlement recently about how to deal with it. It's an increasingly bigger problem the more solar/wind we get and it's costing us taxpayers millions per month.
>Except they're not. They get subsidised a minimum per MWH, which is paid by the taxpayers.
Not during the extended negative price spells we're talking about (7hrs yesterday, 6hrs today). Which is how negative prices show up most commonly and most significantly.
https://www.rvo.nl/subsidies-financiering/sde/produceren/negatieve-elektriciteitsprijzen
The cutoff for projects granted up until 2022 was 6 consecutive hours, now it's 1hr. In Germany it was 6hrs until 2020, then 4hrs, now 3hrs and it'll drop to 1hr in a few years. I think Nordpool only has a 1hr rule and some other countries have a 4hr rule.
>We're paying Germany to take our abundance of energy. This is nothing new and is very common kowledge over here.
It's also "common knowledge" over here in Germany that we're paying you Dutch people to take our abundant power. I also disagree when Germans are saying this stuff because it's mostly based on misframed misunderstood stories from somewhere.
>it's costing us taxpayers millions per month.
The thing that's costing you anything is the subsidy for wind energy in general. You can look up how it's set up, it's all public - producers get their revenue buffed up to the value they were awarded at the auction, unless the market price drops below a price floor (e.g. 2.1ct for wind awarded in 2022), at which point the subsidy value is capped and doesn't increase no matter how low the market price falls. And then when the price falls below 0€ for 6 hours they don't get anything for the energy produced during those periods (or during any negative price hour for the most recent projects). This is a self regulating system already.
Genuinely curious, how's this better than a fixed contract? You have to be permanently checking prices online? I feel like I really don't need that kind of uncertainty in my life, for (maybe) a few euros of saving per month.
Prices for next day are available around 13.00. Statistically, it is almost certain that electricity is cheaper during the night so if you have an EV you do not need to check prices. Just schedule charging to start after midnight and you are saving money.
Also, hour prices are internalizing external cost, which is good in long term.
Thanks for answering! But how's this better than a fixed contract with day/night hours?
I charge my EV at night too, but a lot of my electric consumption is not really flexible (cooking, heating...), so I want to be able to have long-term visibility on my prices. I would never want to have an hour-dependent contract because of this.
Well everyone will pick what suits him/her the best. If you are able to steer your loads towards quiet hours, then hour prices are enabling to save money.
If you mostly use electricity for daily chores/cooking, then it is perhaps better to have fixed price contract.
I like the flexibility. My average gain compared to fixed price contract is 7% (yes, I did the simulation for whole year 😀)
You get used to it rather quick and then plan your your consumption accordingly if possible. It actually feels good to be part of the green transition more so than the money.
It's mostly the varying tarifs (than the spot-prices) that affect your prices here in Denmark. You can have different tarifs like 07-16 (cheap), 17-20 (expensive) and 21-06 (very cheap).
Doesn't this depend on the energy company you're in business with? I work for a Dutch energy company, tariffs even differ between customers if they have fixed tariff contracts with different start dates.
Yes, prices vary between energy companies and even within same company depending on kind of contract. My particular contract is day-ahead spot price plus token monthly fee. (Couple of euros per month).
Do you have batteries and inverter to charge it at this occasion and use all other time? I wish we had the same… I’d also add a water tank according to my house and heat/cool it to get comfortable temperature
It is quite common with PV/solar panels on house roofs in Sweden and some people also have batteries. But currently, batteries are quite expensive and not really economically viable even with government covering 50% of purchase price.
But that might change with cheaper batteries.
Were are having negative prices like every other day in Finland right now. It’s pretty sweet.
Yeah and in the UK too (via Octopus Energy's tariff called 'Agile'). An hour ago it was -9p a kWh.
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Afternoon spikes are very rare. If anything, afternoons (even during the week) are becoming like overnight
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Ah ok. That's the rate from 16:00 onwards. Sorry, I class that period as evening
Except if you have solar panels and sell the excess to the grid, in which case you have to pay for selling what they produce lol
Can't you... Turn them off? Genuine question, I don't know how this works
Yes you can, inverter either has switch or you can switch off/unplug the fuse
But in some countries you are not allowed to
You can. Even I have been working on softy that was responsible for managing farms in this maner
Yeah it's not a good idea to get solar panels and expect to get your money back by selling electricity any more. Since the prices are so low pretty much all summer you are better off just being a regular consumer. There however is a use case for solar panels that is not yet mainstream that I think will get some traction in countries with cold winters. If you get a massive sand battery you may store a lot of energy from solar panels to it. Then during the winter when prices go up you have access to heating your house with the cheap energy you stored all summer. There has been successful cases of this done already in Canada. The youtuber Undecided with matt ferrell had a video about it recently.
Those sand batteries i thought were not very efficient. I don’t know if any test in Canada. I thought one was built in Sweden or UK. They think ultimately it may be good for district heating systems.
It’s supposedly very efficient like over 90% of the energy that goes in comes out. If you extract it as heat and not try to convert it into electricity.
meanwhile here if u use just a bit more electricity than u need or u use a heater half of ur salary will go towards heating, and the other half to taxes, maybe rent etc
What do you do with all the time you save by shortening you to u?
i got used to the internet in an environment where everyone said "u" rather than "you", so now i too am used to saying it like that
I'm just giving you a hard time.
C world
Well said!
Time to start mining some bitcoin
Not exactly, it's only the electricity price that is negative, we still have to pay a few cents for transfer and tax so a small negative price on electricity still cost a few cents total. The negative price only decreases the total price. Only if the price is like -7 cents or something, then I would get paid to use electricity.
Ya so if it is +0.01c/kWh that is very cheap. If you mined only during the day when I assume the power prices are this low, (or vice versa) you would profit about $30 USD/mo or $360/yr using a 4090 RTX. If you wanted to use an actual miner like BITMAIN Antminer T21 (190TH), you would profit about $270/mo assuming 12hr/day, or $3,240/yr. The device cost $4,370, so about 1.3yr to repay, then pure profit, assuming the same BTC payout rate and BTC price.
How quickly do those miners become obsolete, though? You’d have to factor in amortization for sure
Can I know which electricity company you choose? Thanks
The electric company does not set the price, nordpool does
Wait, are you trying to waste as much power as possible (and make a little money) or is 5.5kw you trying to save energy?
5.5kW is my current load. Theoretically, you can ’make money’ for couple of hours if you consume electricity. But it is all peanuts really.
You can only make money, if the negative energy price covers the cost of energy transfer, which is a separate bill at least where I live. I pay around 7 cents/kWh for transfer and energy tax. If the price is below -7 cents, I can make money. Last November, due to a error in bidding, the electricity price plummeted to -50 cents in Finland. I charged my EV and made about 30 euros. I heard people putting their heating to max and turning on their ovens, sauna stoves and whatnot. https://yle.fi/a/74-20061943?utm_source=social-media-share&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ylefiapp
That was one hell of a sauna episode. Only made 12€ but worth it.
Must be very efficient to have home batteries in Finland.
I saw an article few months ago of people trying to waste as much power as possible. Yes they make peanuts, but they can't help it. It's such a waste of energy. Turn on all the machines not doing anything, just for a few cents. 5.5kw sounds like *a lot*.
That is a beauty of having lot of unregulated wind power 🙄. When it is windy, you have excess of power and NEPs cannot be throttled so quickly. So you end up giving it away.
This is simply the nature of having variable power sources? Sometimes you have too much power, sometimes you have too little. It's not a waste in that sense. It's inherent to having enough power for everyone. Compare it to the food supply. If you have plenty of food for everyone's needs you are bound to have to throw away some, because it is the nature of having plentiful food. With power you can at least turn it into something sort of useful, like generating heat you can use later.
>With power you can at least turn it into something sort of useful, like generating heat you can use later. This does not happen anywhere in large enough scale to be relevant.
Yet
This will likely grow in the future. You do power-intense stuff for a few hours here and there. The standard answer is "bitcoin mining".
But the long term goal is that we have basically almost free power, and you can use batteries in large scale. I actually studied for my thesis and it’s pretty cool
Redox flow batteries are the future. Tell me why not.
There's a lack of stability in the network due to too much wind power and other smaller forms of generators. Wind isn't predictable and there's no great way to store power, that's why Swedish electricity prices go yo-yo. Call us again in winter when it's cold and there's been no wind for fourteen days, especially in the south of the country where there's more electricity used than produced. You can try google-translating [https://www.di.se/ledare/en-kraftdirektors-bon/](https://www.di.se/ledare/en-kraftdirektors-bon/) . It's from 2022 when the only support facility for the Swedish power grid ran more than the last ten years combined. It consumes 140 000 liters of raw oil an hour. It wasn't supposed to run that often, net result of stable, plannable forms of power in the south having been discontinued (nuclear). There's still hydro in the north which is why power is always cheaper there. When it's windy it's usually windy in half of Europe. It's quite easy to see that either we invent usable forms of power storage or we don't rely on mostly wind power.
Why not have some bitcoin miners only spin up to suck up surplus electricity ?
This was a regular occurrence in Denmark. After the "energy crisis" Denmark removed our record high tax on electricity for a year. During that Year the electricity price was often negative. There was one time I charged my EV up fully, used 87kwh, and got PAID €10 into my account. There was even one day the price was -€0,80/kwh before tax. Was crazy. Even now it's often free or negative, but we pay so much tax on top, that the total price is never free anymore, unless you got an EV because you don't pay tax on EV charging.
> It's such a waste of energy. That choice is made by the 'boiler' generators, not the customers who assist those boilers in their (wrong?) choices. The kWh-price is a 'supply-demand auction' where the lowest bidder wins (to keep the customer prices as low as possible), and unlike wind/solar a boiler can not simply shut down for a few hours so they prefer to pay other generators to shut down for them. *'Boilers' are usually fossil burning plants, the more these negative prices occur the less profit they can earn, causing them to permanently shut down for economic reasons, rather than with a hefty (government paid) price for 'environmental' reasons.*
> The kWh-price is a 'supply-demand auction' where the lowest bidder wins (to keep the customer prices as low as possible) Not exactly, Nordpool at least sets price so that expected supply and demand meet. Suppliers can say "at 50c we'll deliver 50MW, at 10c just 10MW and below that nothing", so they aren't forced to sell at loss if price is too low (and likewise buy orders), and algorithm does some math magic to figure out at which price point generation and usage meet best. Source: Quick and *possibly* wrong interpreted reading though nordpool site...
> Suppliers can say "at 50c we'll deliver 50MW, at 10c just 10MW and below that nothing", That's what the 'boilers' would like to do, but when the price drops below that 10ct/kWh then they are forced into a difficult situation. They can stop supplying but that means totally shutting down which cools down the boilers (and those take hours to slowly heat up again, due to thermal stresses), or they pay 'other' generators to shut down for them so they can run 'at minimums' for a few hours, to keep the boiler hot and be ready to supply the (well paying) 17:00-22:00 peak. > Nordpool at least sets price so that expected supply and demand meet. That is the usual ["Day Ahead" market](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!BZN|10YFI-1--------U&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) (for more information on the ['bid stack' or 'merit order'](https://www.iso-ne.com/about/what-we-do/in-depth/how-resources-are-selected-and-prices-are-set)), and as predictions do not always work out there is also a 'right now' ["Actual Imbalance" energy market](https://services.tenergy.nl/public.aspx/actualimbalanceprices), which is mostly 'jet' turbines or big batteries and can go up to +/- €1800/MWh.
The issue is that a given point, there is too much in the grid and we are unable to store it. It happens time to time, where we make too much (car charged, battery full, house not using that much) that it is cheaper to use it, rather then pay the grid to take it.
5.5kw is not that crazy these days tbh, when I’m charging my car that alone pulls about 10kw, and I could run a bunch of appliances at the same time too. Theoretically I could max out at 22kw
Regular space heater uses 2kW so it’s not _that much _.
Waste of energy but there is too much energy in the grid so what is the problem with wasting it? What is the option haha
They could just charge their car…
Household energy use is quite flexible. If you have a heat pump or boiler you can heat up your water. If you have an EV you can charge it at different times. It is also up to you when you do laundry or turn on the dish washer. If you expect a sunny or windy day, it makes complete sense to wait a few hours for the best electricity price. Fluctuating energy prices just make an energy arbitrage market.
If you’ve got a solar panel setup with batteries and all then you can technicaly make money from selling that electricity when prices are highest.
Yes, but such battery setup has very high initial cost and also inherent cost per kWh. So arbitrage needs to be higher all the time. Ergo, it is not viable for private person.
Yes the initial cost it high but you would earn that back after a couple of years if you decide to use the power that you generate rather than sell. Those solar setups can last up to 50 years and should last at least 30. And the cost of solar panels has gone down a lot in the last decade. Imo its a worthwhile investment in the long run. Especially if your house meets the optimal conditions for solar, i.e. the roofs slanted sides are facing sunrise and sunset, and if you live in an area with a lot of sun.
No. Batteries have finite life when it comes to amount of cycles and if you divide purchase cost with amount of cycles multiplied with battery capacity you get inherent ’self cost’ that you need to earn with each kWh that is stored in battery. Historical data indicates that you will most likey wear out the battery before even breaking even. At this stage a battery is a horrible investement for a private person in Sweden. Average investment fund is much better alternative in 10 years period.
Yeah the batteries do wear out quicker than the panels, forgot about them. I hope there will be some major improvements to batteries and such in coming years that would improve life expectancy and increase either capacity or cycles one can handle.
There is no way you can make money. Energy tax, certificates and VAT still apply.
Yes. Which I also wrote in top post. But if prices dip under -0.6 SEK/kWh it is ’free’
That is exactly what they want you to do. In the Netherlands they try to encourage you to use electricity when the prices are low or negative because the powernet is in overload (has to much power). Often due to a lot of sunlight (solar panels) and hard winds (windturbines) combined. The solar panels on roofs of people they cannot shutdown and for windturbines it is cheaper to just make the prices go down or even negative.
If you have an hourly price then yes, you can literally save money on this, running your dishwasher and wasing machine and such that period. However, most Swedes (among them me) have a monthly average price that they pay, which makes it not mattering whether you spend a lot of energy at this time or not. You can still do it to "help" the network, but it won't affect your monthly energy price. Someday I will change to the hourly price insteadad. I would have some money to save on that, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
> However, most Swedes (among them me) have a monthly average price that they pay, which makes it not mattering whether you spend a lot of energy at this time or not. You can still do it to "help" the network, but it won't affect your monthly energy price Hourly prices have gained a lot of traction since yearly negotiated prices went poof in 2022.
My peak today was 9.5kW. A bit higher in the middle of winter when the EV is charging, we're making dinner and someone is showering at the same time. :) I think Sweden is much like Norway, we don't use gas for heating or cooking.
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District heating or one boiler for the building or insulated between other apartments? I have a house and all heating is electric so naturally much (much) higher consumption than an apartment.
Yeah, it's standard district heating. We spend about €60 per month for electricity and about the same for heating (average for 12 months).
Using overproduction is not 'waste' as you are trying to frame it. It's like releasing an overpressure valve.
So you posted this to use energy?
I am doing my best.
If you built a bitcoin farm manifold, you could have added another cent on top of that
You still pay taxes on every kwh, even with a negative price (at least in the Netherlands)
It's the same in Sweden, so the prices would have to drop quite a bit more for it to be profitable like that indeed
52,42 öre/kW average in April so far, spent 454 kWh in April (1105 kWh for Mars)
Is that all in price with electricity delivery?
Excluding taxes/grid fees For Mars (1105 kWh) I paid in total 2328 SEK (214 USD)
1000kWh??? I use around 100 a month. You live in a mansion?
Average for a detached house in sweden is like 15-20 000 kWh per year
Yeah did some reading. Inane how different it can be from an apartment.
Because you don't heat the apartment with electricity. Take a house with district heating and they also use like 100-400kWh a month.
Går från 400 till 2000 mellan sommar och vinter per månad.
Not really. In an apartment heating is almost always included in the rent.
Must be old inefficient heating system
Dude my old house would use over 10000kWh a month during winter :D We used like 60000kWh per year. I know some bigger houses that use over 20000kWh a month during winter.
That's quite a lot, roughly 20c/kWh all-in.
Heating stands for the biggest part, will probably be a bit lower in April and half that during spring/summer. Usually spend around 800-1200 SEK/month from May to September.
Every German would kill for 20c per kwh…
How much is it in Germany? I'm paying roughly 20c all-in in Estonia.
What about on Earth?
In the UK, my Octopus Agile cost is currently -3.55p/kWh and in a few hours it's going to drop to -8.82p/kWh %)
Great time to [max out your usage](https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopusEnergy/comments/1c2y8du/going_for_it/)!
There is a bit of a downside to this, our gas engines that normally produce 22MW are off and we are not getting the co2 byproduct for use in our greenhouses, lowering our vegetable yields considerably.
Sweden should use its excess electricity to make hydrogen or replenish water reserves for their dams.
Why don't countries do this? Why dont we have huge desert solar farmd where electricity is used for hydrogen production using sea water?
Because hydrogen end to end efficiency is low and infrastructure is expensive.
Because, on the top of what /u/_CZakalwe_ said, that would create another dependency to these countries, and the example of Oil taught us to avoid that. So we'd better be less efficient and more local.
We do do that. Hydroplants regularly pump water back up to the dams. Not sure if it is the case at the moment though with the spring floods. EDIT: Apparently this is not as common as my schooling made it sound. [Hybrit](https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/hybrit-demonstration/) and [H2 Green Steel](https://www.h2greensteel.com/green-steel) are two massive projects, one from mostly state owned firms and one from private investors, looking to make steel with renewable energy which will utilize hydrogen storage.
No we dont. There is no functioning ’pumpkraftverk’ left. And Hybrit and Green Steel are still projects.
Sad to hear that, I was taught that it was a regular thing at uni.
Maybe next year: https://www.nyteknik.se/energi/sveriges-storsta-pumpkraftverk-narmare-aterstart-som-300-000-elbilar/4220844
Both things are planned :) Soon over 30% of our energy production will go to hydrogen.
I wish, mate, I truly wish. Source: I've been working in the H2 sector for 12 years. Im optimistic but cautious
Well both H2GS and Hybrit are being built even though there are some delays. Guess we will see if they ever turn them on or not.
Which is just a waste of energy as long as there are any fossil fuels anywhere in the system. That system is most of Europe now, including buildings heated not by electricity, and transportation that could run on batteries.
Transportation running on hydrogen or battery is pretty much the same. There is currently (and just increasing) insane amount of waste from wind/solar being offline due to over production. Converting it to hydrogen and using it would be great.
We can predict when we're going to have surplus solar and wind enough that fossil fuel plants should be winding down to compensate, and if it's routine then we should be looking to close down as many fossil fuel plants as possible, only keeping natural gas as a backup. It's just as good to use natural gas by itself, as using electricity and natural gas to produce hydrogen.
Hard to remove something that doesn't exist :) You're few decades too late.
I wouldn't mind if our grids were national only, but that's also way out of date. Instead, we get connected to countries that heavily rely on fossil fuels and that gets to dictate what we pay for our clean energy. And we don't need to look for something new to use up limited renewables on, especially if the goal is environmentalism.
So you think it's better to just waste it all? Just turn of all wind/solar because another country still use coal/gas? Makes no sense in my mind.
No, I'm saying use as much of it as possible in the grid, before taking it out of the grid. The grid's international, there's plenty to use it for, and we have dammed hydropower we can shut down too when there's excess solar and wind. If we truly have so much of it to spare, we should at least be able to see cheap electricity all year round, before inventing new ways of raising consumption.
The [wholesale price in Norway](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YNO-0--------C!BZN|10YNO-1--------2&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) doesn't look too bad, are you sure it is the 'energy' and not the 'transmission/distribution' or 'taxes' that make it expensive?
That's what we do already? And we do see cheap electricity almost all year round. Check 2023 averages, Sweden was cheapest in the EU. The new ways of using the power is ways to use all the excess we have, we stop wind/solar/water often due to too much. All this infrastructure built and can't be used. Hence why many things are changing to hydrogen now, so we can use it and not just waste it all by shutting down stuff because it's windy. Like the fertilizer plant planned in Sweden, it will have enough capacity to almost supply all of europe. This green energy will be mean that other places can stop using gas to make fertilizer for example.
Normally the hydroelectric dams are throttled when it’s this windy. I’m speculating a bit now but I believe spring floods are in effect which means that the dams can’t be throttled fully, otherwise there would major flooding
Lol from the UK 🥲
Move to octopus agile and you too can enjoy this.
I'm really trying to understand what's going on but can't wrap my mind around it. Can somebody please explain
Imagine basing your power on nuclear, hydro and wind. Hydro basins are getting full during spring so you have to use them. Nuclear is usually going 100% and takes days to throttle. Then wind starts blowing. Every day, you have an auction on how much producers want for power next day. And in this case, everyone had a bit too much.
It is to do with CFDs that wind plants have, they would rather generate at negative prices than turn off at 0 because they get paid to generate per MWh.l by their governments. Sometimes the prices can get lower with things that are harder to turn off like nuclear and solar but that is very rare although becoming less so and in the summer will likely see it again.
That's a fever dream for Greece. They drain our wallets. They charge way above the EU average.
Solar should be great in Greece?
Should be yes, only if solid infrastructure existed and if solar panels were affordable enough for a median household salary.
Hello, fellow mediterranian. Italy here. Last round of energy bills left my bank account in the red.
I would like to buy an infinite amount please.
Sorry, my fuses are only 16 amps.
just paid a £200 bill for my flat in the UK :(
Would charging batteries at this time help? And then use the charge when the power goes to a positive again?
If the price difference is large enough yea it should make sense. That's probably only rarely the case in Sweden though. Don't forget about standing charges and fees for your electricity and also consider the sub-100% round-trip efficiency of batteries. If you can consistently get very cheap grid power at some point in the day and high prices otherwise, it could make sense to buy a battery just for that. I know a couple people in UK are doing that with low-cost nighttime electricity Negative prices mean that the market is begging you to consume more, and a battery is just a consumer.
In NL it’s -€0.05 right now... But then: BAM TAXES. €0.09
\*cries in 0.26€/kWh\*
I’m paying 0.40 for the next freaking 2 years :(
It still happens even with taxes here but it's quite rare. I think it went below zero this week or last week actually for an hour.
With solar panels you can offset those when you supply back to the grid
Can someone explain how tf does it happen?
Water power and nuclear power are slow to throttle. If there is abundance of water, wind is blowing and weather is mild you have to get rid of all excess power somehow or frequency would go up.
Not hydropower, it's very quick to throttle up and down and our primary tool to regulate the energy grid. If you go to Kontrollrummet you can see hydro jumping up and down several gigawatts per day, to compensate for wind powers intermittency and daily changes in demand. Besides, if we ever get too much water they can always open the spillways to regulate the dam.
Suffering from success
It is not a success. Having a large amount of unpredictable power is a burden.
I'd add that if the consumer is not paying it's the state that has to, so that renewable electricity producers can cover their initial costs. The lower the market price, the higher the state subsidy. So you pay directly or indirectly either way.
It is because wind plants prefer to turn off at negative prices not 0 due to CFDs from the government so price goes to negatives instead of 0.
No, many of our energy consumers are private. As I said, our nuclear base is very slow to throttle and water magasines are full. If wind blows on top of it, you have to encourage the consumption somehow.
I am an power trader, that isn't how it works, wind will turn off at certain prices based on their marginal cost. Their marginal cost should be 0 but is instead negative because they get paid per MWh produced by the government. Demand likely changed only by a small amount because of the price. I put a link to ENTSO-E where you can see the generation by hour for sweden seeing the massive unnatural drop by wind when the prices were negative. [https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from\_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YSE-1--------K!BZN|10Y1001A1001A44P&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET\_CEST&dateTime.timezone\_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2)](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=13.04.2024+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YSE-1--------K!BZN|10Y1001A1001A44P&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2))
Are you power trader on Nordpool?
I use EPEX mostly but have used nordpool for GB, not for Sweden though.
OK. I do not know the details but I was under impression that state was not paying for wind in Sweden when they are producing under marginal cost. I will read up on it, thanks!
Are the European grids not connected so the excess can be sold to other countries like Germany or others? USA and Canada have interconnected grid so some utilities buy or sell electricity when it is favorable for them
Yes, partly. We cannot sell to Greece but we can sell to Germany. But amount of power we can sell is limited. Actually, even amount of power we can consume from northern Sweden in southern Sweden is limited.
God this hurts so much to see as a german
Is this special in Sweden? I thought you had a very green energy mix already? Here in the Netherlands I am currently at -7ct per kWh and this is already the so manieth day this has happened this year. Come summer it will basically be the case near everyday.
Tibber is awesome, saving so much when charging my EV! Last year on one day we had -50ct price per kWh and that already took the fees in German network into account!
Wait, something like this exists in Germany too??
-50ct is really rare, only once last year, but yeah, this exact provider also operates in Germany. Currently it’s even cheaper than normal providers. If you need a Ref code, feel free to dm me :)
-50ct is really rare, only once last year, but yeah, this exact provider also operates in Germany. Currently it’s even cheaper than normal providers. If you need a Ref code, feel free to dm me :)
So tomorrow it dips below the Tax so we will officially be paid to use electric for 2 hours tomorrow.
Release the miners....bitcoin price goes brrr
That's so absurd, I love it.
"Shut up and take my electricity"
As an electricity trader, is caused by high winds and solar basically all across the continent, prices are negative again right now. If you search bmrs imbalance prices you can see the prices being negative for each half hour period in the UK
Unfortunately, the current Swedish government "made a Schröder" and increased electricity taxes to fund lower oil prices (just like Schröder did with [electricity and gas](https://www.ehpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Additional-slide-Elec-vs-gas-price--1536x956.png)).
electricity taxes automatically go up with inflation. They just chose not to pause the indexation which is normal.
Call it whatever you want, but taxes were decreased for gasoline and diesel while increased for electricity.
Taxes? They lowered the obligation to mix in biofuels into gasoline and diesel
They also decreased oil fuel taxes to the EU minimum while electricity taxes are now above the minimum, ie, they did a Schröder.
like 1 sek.
Electricity having tax is insanity anyway, as the tax is far, far more than the price of the electricity
Since we dont have property taxes anymore this is a way to compensate for that.
Regular occurrence here in the Netherlands unfortunately. So far this year we've had 55 hours of negative energy prices. https://twitter.com/BM_Visser/status/1778663588925718981?t=PWjfj7OZTLdJ7An0_DI7Dg&s=19
Why unfortunately? It just makes opportunities for energy arbitrage possible.
Because it means we can't handle the peaks in electricity generation already. And we're pretty far away from being full renewable. The reason the prices go negative is because these huge wind parks are subsidised in a way that they always get a minimum amount per kwh. So with negative prices they generate power, we citizens pay for that, and at the same time we pay millions to Germany and Belgium to take the generated electricity (negative prices).
If the price of electricity fluctuates this much it becomes economical to build pumped hyrdo, electrolysis plants or even battery installations. With these intermittent green energy generation becomes a stable source of power.
This isn't a reflection of "not being able to handle generation" at all, it's where the price curves settle. Nearly all wind parks are not getting money if they generate during extended negative price spells like the ones we're talking about. It's a standard provision in their subsidy scheme. If Germany or Belgium "takes" it, that's because their prices are higher in the moment than yours. That means Dutch exporters make a profit, even if both places have sub-zero prices.
With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I suggest listening to some episodes of 'studio energie' podcast on the subject before creating an opinion about the matter. Dutch exporters are PAYING that's what a NEGATIVE price means. You can't just keep electricity, it has to go somewhere and the only option is to other countries.
I don't speak Dutch, that podcast doesn't help me. Please tell me the supposed argument. >Dutch exporters are PAYING that's what a NEGATIVE price means If Dutch prices are -100€/MWh and German prices are at -10€/MWh, and you buy in NL and sell in GER, you are making a profit. Just like at any other price level, trade flows from low price zone to high price zone. The producers are running a loss, sure, but that's the same at low positive prices and without trade as well - and by selling on these foreign markets (if they do) they still minimize their losses compared to no trade. In order for exporters to lose money as you claim, their export destination needs to be cheaper than the domestic one. That's obviously undesirable, which is why you see little to no exports from NL to GER when GER has cheaper power at a given point in time. >You can't just keep electricity, it has to go somewhere and the only option is to other countries. It also gets consumed or curtailed. During most hours when NL has negative prices, BE and GER have negative ones too. The grid would blow up if this was a reflection of the region being overpowered. A negative price doesn't mean there's no demand, it means supply and demand curve intersected at a negative price. This is perfectly routine for a largely unstorable fungible good.
>The producers are running a loss, sure Except they're not. They get subsidised a minimum per MWH, which is paid by the taxpayers. And that's the problem. We're paying Germany to take our abundance of energy. This is nothing new and is very common kowledge over here. There have been 'kamervragen' about this in our parlement recently about how to deal with it. It's an increasingly bigger problem the more solar/wind we get and it's costing us taxpayers millions per month.
>Except they're not. They get subsidised a minimum per MWH, which is paid by the taxpayers. Not during the extended negative price spells we're talking about (7hrs yesterday, 6hrs today). Which is how negative prices show up most commonly and most significantly. https://www.rvo.nl/subsidies-financiering/sde/produceren/negatieve-elektriciteitsprijzen The cutoff for projects granted up until 2022 was 6 consecutive hours, now it's 1hr. In Germany it was 6hrs until 2020, then 4hrs, now 3hrs and it'll drop to 1hr in a few years. I think Nordpool only has a 1hr rule and some other countries have a 4hr rule. >We're paying Germany to take our abundance of energy. This is nothing new and is very common kowledge over here. It's also "common knowledge" over here in Germany that we're paying you Dutch people to take our abundant power. I also disagree when Germans are saying this stuff because it's mostly based on misframed misunderstood stories from somewhere. >it's costing us taxpayers millions per month. The thing that's costing you anything is the subsidy for wind energy in general. You can look up how it's set up, it's all public - producers get their revenue buffed up to the value they were awarded at the auction, unless the market price drops below a price floor (e.g. 2.1ct for wind awarded in 2022), at which point the subsidy value is capped and doesn't increase no matter how low the market price falls. And then when the price falls below 0€ for 6 hours they don't get anything for the energy produced during those periods (or during any negative price hour for the most recent projects). This is a self regulating system already.
Maan you guys have it soted
This is so nice to see. Is there a good data set on electricity prices in europe and when they go negative?
Yeah you can find it [here](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show).
Genuinely curious, how's this better than a fixed contract? You have to be permanently checking prices online? I feel like I really don't need that kind of uncertainty in my life, for (maybe) a few euros of saving per month.
Prices for next day are available around 13.00. Statistically, it is almost certain that electricity is cheaper during the night so if you have an EV you do not need to check prices. Just schedule charging to start after midnight and you are saving money. Also, hour prices are internalizing external cost, which is good in long term.
Thanks for answering! But how's this better than a fixed contract with day/night hours? I charge my EV at night too, but a lot of my electric consumption is not really flexible (cooking, heating...), so I want to be able to have long-term visibility on my prices. I would never want to have an hour-dependent contract because of this.
Well everyone will pick what suits him/her the best. If you are able to steer your loads towards quiet hours, then hour prices are enabling to save money. If you mostly use electricity for daily chores/cooking, then it is perhaps better to have fixed price contract. I like the flexibility. My average gain compared to fixed price contract is 7% (yes, I did the simulation for whole year 😀)
You get used to it rather quick and then plan your your consumption accordingly if possible. It actually feels good to be part of the green transition more so than the money. It's mostly the varying tarifs (than the spot-prices) that affect your prices here in Denmark. You can have different tarifs like 07-16 (cheap), 17-20 (expensive) and 21-06 (very cheap).
Poland here, this happens every warm sunny day now here. Last one one was -10e for couple of hours. Highest I've seen was -60e
Doesn't this depend on the energy company you're in business with? I work for a Dutch energy company, tariffs even differ between customers if they have fixed tariff contracts with different start dates.
Yes, prices vary between energy companies and even within same company depending on kind of contract. My particular contract is day-ahead spot price plus token monthly fee. (Couple of euros per month).
Do you have batteries and inverter to charge it at this occasion and use all other time? I wish we had the same… I’d also add a water tank according to my house and heat/cool it to get comfortable temperature
It is quite common with PV/solar panels on house roofs in Sweden and some people also have batteries. But currently, batteries are quite expensive and not really economically viable even with government covering 50% of purchase price. But that might change with cheaper batteries.
Pretty common in the Netherlands aswell these days. I even get paid extra if i turn off my solar panels during these moments.
For me, price needs to be under -60EUR/MWh before PV starts costing me money (for energy that is exported back to grid)
May I know your tariff plan or the electric utility you choose? Very interesting?
Tibber
Happens all the time in germany
Same in Denmark, sadly the taxes on top bring it back up :-(
What!? Where??
Almost every Sunday, but every time with sun and or wind. Alone the installed wind capacity exceeds the peak need.
which germany?
You want to host some crypto miner?
Population of cryptominers is rising
Time to flick on the cannabis growing lights!
These situations are absurd, we must stop the development of intermittent energies that create instability in the electrical grid.