Energy Prices in Europe Hit Records After Wind Stops Blowing. Heavy reliance on wind power, coupled with a shortage of natural gas, has led to a spike in energy prices

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 13, 2021 | Joe Wallace

[karpov]

Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing.

The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.

Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.

The episode underscored the precarious state the region’s energy markets face heading into the long European winter. The electricity price shock was most acute in the U.K., which has leaned on wind farms to eradicate net carbon emissions by 2050. Prices for carbon credits, which electricity producers need to burn fossil fuels, are at records, too.

“It took a lot of people by surprise,” said Stefan Konstantinov, senior energy economist at data firm ICIS, of the leap in power prices. “If this were to happen in winter when we’ve got significantly higher demand, then that presents a real issue for system stability.”

At their peak, U.K. electricity prices had more than doubled in September and were almost seven times as high as at the same point in 2020. Power markets also jumped in France, the Netherlands and Germany.

Prices for power to be dispatched the next day rocketed to £285 a megawatt hour in the U.K. when wind speeds dropped last week, according to ICIS. That is equivalent to $395 a megawatt hour and marked a record on figures going back to 1999.

[vpintheak]

Morons. All complete morons.

[Tell It Right]

"When it is time to replace the roof it will cost an additional $1700-$3000..."

I have a metal roof. Hopefully replacing the roof will happen about as infrequently as Longhorns national championships. LOL

[fireman15]

and buy a 10 kW generator to run for an average of about 45 minutes per month on the very few times I don't have enough power to get through the night.

Fun post. I am glad that you are in an area where you can efficiently use solar. Without government subsidies in the area where we live they do not produce enough electricity to pay for themselves.

Our house is in an area near the foothills where the power goes out frequently. We and all of our neighbors have generators ready to go whenever their is an interuption. Fortunately we have natural gas as well. When the power goes out all the generators start up almost immediately.

We have ours metered so that we know the exact amount of power and gas that has been used. A little secret... unless you have something that uses a lot of power or creates a large starting load an over-sized generator does nothing but waste fuel as compared to an appropriately sized generator. Generators are most efficient near their peak capacity. When the generators are outputting 2500 watts the 10kw will be using almost twice as much fuel as a 5kw.

We use a 5kw and try not to use two heavy loads at the same time. Since we have gas heat and use a gas clothes dryer this basically means that we try not to use the microwave and toaster at the same time.

[VTenigma]

Man, I did not see that one coming.

[fireman15]

Panels have 25 year warranty. Batteries 2,000 discharge warranty (19 years).

I am glad that you live in an area where solar cells will eventually pay for themselves. It does not work that way where we are at.

How do you figure that your batteries will survive for 19 years? I am not sure that you have a clear understanding of how batteries are used in a functioning solar system. Even if you had them only on a self leveling trickle charger most batteries will not be in useful condition after 19 years even if you never used them.

[Maris Crane]

Yet another example of the Left has:

NO FORESIGHT!

Tunneled vision bunch of brainless idiots.

[Maris Crane]

And now:

No WIND!

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

The Europeans believe in Global Warming. So to save the planet, they are willing to do without electricity for heating, cooling, cooking, or industry. I guess the Stone Age suits them just fine.

[Chickensoup]

Perhaps the machinations of the leftists should bother you and that you should do something about it instead of thinking you are a step ahead. Do you honestly think that you will be allowed the “solar allowance” much longer?

[Tell It Right]

Excellent point about the efficiency of generators being highest when producing at their designed level.

I believe that's not an issue in my case. If I understand it right, if I have my solar inverter in off-grid mode and it decides it needs generator power (i.e. because my batteries' strength of charge SOC reaches a set point like 20%), then when my inverter fires up the generator it tells the generator to run at full capacity until my battery SOC is up to a set level (i.e. 30%) and tells it to shut off. So if I have 60 kWh of storage, 10% of that is 6 kWh. That's about 40 minutes of run from a 10kW generator. Maybe 60 minutes to account for my home at night consuming a little power. We're talking less than a gallon of ethanol free gasoline (to keep it from gumming up the carburetor of the generator if it sits there for a while) per month.

Based on the output I've received from my solar system so far, I believe I could double the system and need about 45 minutes to an hour once per month from my generator, to supplement my solar to power my all-electric (once I replace the gas appliances) two story home as well as throw in 15 kWh daily into an EV (that I plan to buy next year whether or not the power company forces me to go off grid). The reason I want two 10kW generators if I go off grid is because I every now and then have family in for vacation (consuming more power than just my wife and me) and because I'd like a 2nd generator as a backup in case one quits.

But that's only if the power company forces me into either going off grid or paying their ridiculous monthly solar fee (that I'm so far avoiding). For now I'm happy with it as it is.

[fireman15]

If I understand it right, if I have my solar inverter in off-grid mode and it decides it needs generator power (i.e. because my batteries’ strength of charge SOC reaches a set point like 20%), then when my inverter fires up the generator it tells the generator to run at full capacity until my battery SOC is up to a set level (i.e. 30%) and tells it to shut off. So if I have 60 kWh of storage, 10% of that is 6 kWh. That's about 40 minutes of run from a 10kW generator.

You should do a little more research on how this all works together. Unfortunately people who sell generators often try to upsell larger capacity units because they charge so much more for them. It is often said that for an off the grid system that you should buy a generator that is twice as large as the inverter in your solar system. The reasoning behind this is murky at best. In reality your generator should be just large enough to handle the maximum load that you will be putting on it plus a little fudge factor to handle equipment with large starting loads.

Here are a few figures from our past experience to think about.

Even on natural gas that still costs us just over $1 per therm, the generator still costs around three times what the power company charges for electricity... currently $.10 per kwh. Because our generator runs more efficiently on natural gas than gasoline 1 therm for us is the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. Gasoline is now up to approximately $4 a gallon here in Washington. So you can see that electricity generated by our generator using gasoline would cost us around $1.20 per kwh to generate. This is based on our usage patterns with a 5kw generator and an average 2500 watt load.

[Tell It Right]

The warranty is the guarantee that the batteries will work fine, with the understanding that their efficiency degrades over time to the point that at the end of their 2,000 guaranteed discharges (basically a discharge per day at night time means a little over 19 years to get 2,000 discharges) they're still working at 70%. I don't have to "figure" out the "how". The supplier and vendor have to figure that out or replace them. That's what the warranty frees me from having to worry about.

My solar chargers built into my inverter does the trickle charge when it charges them every day, but the trickle charge goes into effect when the SOC (strength of charge) gets nearly full. That's one of the nice things about 48V lithium batteries. Until they're nearly fully charged, they can be charged with high voltage and amperage.

Six lithium batteries holding 5 kWh each, but the warranty expects me not to discharge them beyond 80% (down to 20% SOC). So count them as 4 kWh useful storage each -- 24 kWh total.

For reference, I consumed 82 kWh yesterday on a hot Alabama September day running the A/C as hard as Bama's gonna run over Florida this weekend. I bought 40 kWh from the power company even though it was cloudy half the time and even had a small rain. So I bought about 49% of my power. And I have my inverter set to pull from the grid when my SOC gets to 30%, not 20%, to try to extend the life of my batteries beyond the 19 year warranty. That's on a not so nice day for solar (high demand from my power but less sun to power it for free). On Saturday I bought 28% of the power I consumed (39.8 kWh bought of 82.5 kWh used), and on Friday I bought 17% (6.6 kWh bought of 39.8). During the spring I have lots of weeks where I produce over 90% of the power I consume (lots of sun in the spring to keep the batteries fully charged, but not running the A/C nearly as much especially at night, so my batteries are often only 50% drained until the sun comes back up). Overall I'm looking at 70% of my power coming from solar. I'll take that. And my lithium batteries aren't even being drained the full 80% the warranty allows.

[woodbutcher1963]

Just wondering, have you added as much insulation to your attic and any other spaces that add heat gain during the day.

I am in NH. SO, I am more concerned about heating in the winter than cooling in the summer.
I am also living in a 1972 house. I added a foot of bonded cellulose insulation to my attic. I caulked around all windows and exterior doors. I even took off all of the electrical outlet plates on exterior walls and foamed/caulked around those. I replaced 3 of the 5 exterior doors entirely. The two remaining doors, I replaced the weather stripping. lastly, we added insulating curtains to the sliding glass doors and all bedroom windows.

The other major purchase was a wood pellet insert I installed when Obama let oil get up to $150/barrel. My furnace burns heating oil.

The biggest bang for the buck was the attic insulation. All the remaining items contributed small amounts but cumulatively they reduced my energy consumption.

Obviously, your goal would be to reduce heat gain in the summer months. However, insulation works both ways, heat loss and gain.

I have noticed since I did all of the above that my pellet usage is now down from the first winter. It does not take as much energy to keep my house warm.

[Tell It Right]

Good point on the price of nat gas being lower than gasoline.

But if I convert my two natural gas appliances to electric, I'm getting rid of my natural gas bill. Along with it goes the $11 or so monthly fee I pay just to stay connected, not even counting how much I pay above that for per cubic foot usage. So that's part of the math.

But this is only if my power company forces me to pay the "solar fee" of about $54 per month on top of the $15.86 per month we have to pay just to stay connected to the power company (before paying more per kWh usage). If I never have to pay that, then I'm happy not buying generators anyway. The power company is my "backup" whenever my batter backup isn't enough. But if I have to pay that fee and cut off my connection to the power grid, I'll gladly buy about 1 or 1.5 gallons of gas per month to feed a 10kW generator (maybe a 2nd 10kW generator as a backup to that or if I have company over while it's raining) over having to pay $11/month to the natural gas company on top of the cubic foot usage when I rarely use my generator -- after buying a really expensive natural gas generator.

Keep in mind that if my inverter was to kick in the generator when my SOC gets to 30%, I still have 10% my inverter pulls from the batteries (before it has a 20% SOC cutoff to not pull from the batteries at all), which is currently 3 kWh (it'll be 6 kWh if I double it to go off-grid). So that's 6 kWh my inverter can pull the batteries from while it's getting 10 kW from a generator, before it gets another 10 kW from the other generator if it needs it.

[nosf40]

Wood pellets used in the largest UK power plant (Draxx) are not a bi-product of logging.
This power plant consumes more than 7Million tonnes of wooden pellets per year. Most of that fuel comes form North America:
4.5 M t from USA
1.5 M t from Canada

[Tell It Right]

I did put some insulation in my attic first. But as you said that's not as big of an issue for me since I'm more concerned with keeping cool air from escaping.

I put heavy insulation between the floors over my garage (a built-in garage in my bottom floor underneath my kitchen) since my garage is practically outside air even when the garage doors are closed. My wife and I also went around the house like you said and caulked up around the windows. I had already replaced the outside doors a few years ago anyway and added the rubber felt gaskets around the doors.

[woodbutcher1963]

Sorry, the wood pellets are a by product of sawmills shavings.
The shavings from sawmills are converted to pellets.

[billyboy15]

Yours was a good choice.

A question. When I lived in Central South NJ (2008-2017) we were offered totally free installation of solar panels by the Utility company and many folks took advantage of it. Excess power was returned to the company and the rates were guaranteed not to go up for a fairly high number of years.

Did you have any offers like that in your case?

[woodbutcher1963]

How deep are your overhangs?
If you don’t have large overhangs you could add awnings.

Adding awnings to windows on the south side of your house can keep the sun out during the peak hours of the day.

Even adding blinds or some other kind of window treatment can make a big difference in the summer to keep the heat out.

Try doing a search for passive solar construction methods.

One of the other main ideas for passive solar construction is to plant deciduous trees on the south and west side of the house. The idea is they will shade the house in the summer. Then the leaves fall off and the sun warms the house in the winter. The other is to plant evergreen trees on the windward side of the house to block cold winds in the winter.

[fireman15]

I’ll gladly buy about 1 or 1.5 gallons of gas per month to feed a 10kW generator

You should find the fuel usage chart of the generator that you are considering. Even if your system does allow higher amperage charging which will reduce the life of your batteries, your system will take much more than an hour to charge batteries from 20%. It will also take much more than a 1 to 1.5 gallons of gas if it is somehow running near its capacity.

Natural gas is much easier on a small engine than gasoline. We have been using the same 5kw for over 25 years with nothing but a yearly oil change and a new spark plug. It still starts like a champ.