The price of a stabilized green power grid is very steep, one could say it is like a “hockey stick”
Story submitted by Eric Worrall (h/t John Droz)
Coal and gas electricity companies are being paid up to 400x times the wholesale price of power, in return for helping to stabilize the German electricity grid.
According to Bloomberg, “Germany’s push toward renewable energy is causing so many drops and surges from wind and solar power that the government is paying more utilities than ever to help stabilize the country’s electricity grid.”
“At the beginning, this market counted for only a small portion of our earnings,” said Hartmuth Fenn, the head of intraday, market access and dispatch at Vattenfall AB, Sweden’s biggest utility. “Today, we earn 10 percent of our plant profits in the balancing market”.
Given that lignite coal plants are also playing this game, according to Bloomberg, and lignite plants are famously inflexible, you have to wonder exactly how fossil fuel plants are providing the required flexibility.
One interesting possibility is that the CO2 belching fossil fuel utility companies are spinning their generators up to full power, and are simply discarding vast amounts of excess energy, until solar or wind output drops – so they can be ready to dump extra capacity onto the grid at a moment’s notice.
At 400x wholesale rate, they could afford to burn away gigawatts of power as waste heat, and still make a handsome profit from the “balancing” fee for whatever energy they actually supply to the grid.
The graph above is from this article at No Tricks Zone, which is reporting on the effects on consumers in Germany.
Sounds like Germany has figured out a way to print euros with their lignite.
Post War analyses of Germany’s attempts to the A bomb in WW2, led by Werner Heisenberg and other brilliant German physicists would never have succeeded in theirbdesigns to create a military deliverable super critical cores.
The US Manhattan Project, with its core cadre of German Jewish physicists who departed Germany in 1933 when Hitler attained full dictatorialpower, of course succeeded. Hitler, like the liberals today, sacrificed science for political correctness.
Germans do make huge mistakes. Big ones. Climate Change economic destruction may well be another one of those epic mistakes.
I don’t see anything in this article or the linked articles that supports “400x increase in power rates.” I see a graph up there that looks like a 10x increase in rates. Is “400x” a typo of “400%” (4x)?
I think that the 400x/400% issue needs to be cleared up but in reality it makes no difference.
The big lignite producers have found a way to game the system and they are doing so. They have so much margin, the economics and efficiency matters not a jot. Simply because wind and solar on the grid does not nor cannot work.
Market forces will overcome all stupidity.
market forces are wonderful things. The simplest and cheapest and quickest way to send the EPA packing is to do what they want. No lengthy expensive legal battles. No giving them free publicity. Just give them what they want, starting in DC, close the nearest coal fired power station, for maintenance, then the next nearest and so on, till they are gone. Then turn the lights back on again.
Same is happening in Germany. So much free energy but no reduction in coal use????????????????? Same result, slightly different way of doing it.
The great tragedy about all of this is that the main stream media refuse to get hold of the problem and point out the facts being hidden by governments across the world. Why?
Interesting bit here http://bit.ly/1uD5Uc5 on how spinning reserve and other sources were used to cover the sudden loss of 1GW after storm breaks wires (overhead cables!):
Dungeness nuclear power station shuts down following hurricane-strength winds
The bulk is instantly (12 seconds spec) supplied by pumped storage. Even coal sees a quick ramp up and a few 10s MW from OCGT. But no power outage caused. It would be interesting to know what happened to the power being generated when the line went down – it’s not easy damping down a nuke (see Fukushima problems)
here’s one the UK national grid could not handle 2 generatyors down then STOR suppliers drop out the consumers unplugged:
National grid http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/E19B4740-C056-4795-A567-91725ECF799B/32165/PublicFrequencyDeviationReport.pdf
Janice Moore says:
July 28, 2014 at 5:37 pm
You have no idea how deeply ingrained & Mainstream the Green Mantras have become in Germany. As is usual with ideologies, these consist of unconnected bits and slogans: no inkling, e.g., that supposed benefits may incur costs (indeed, MUST), or any economic factors at all. The whole show runs on pure belief: if something is Deemed Good, according to the green dogma, it must, a priori, be good. If things turn out otherwise, it has not been implemented forcefully enough, or been sabotaged by Hidebound Reactionaries, or Vested Interests. For those who remember the mindset of the socialists, it`s déjá vu all over again.
Add to it a widespread ignorance in matters scientific or mathematical. By now, it is the rule even for a Professor at a University to be unable to add or subtract two 2-digit numbers without having to ask one of his (or hers) students where to find “this calculator thingie” on his computer.
This is why the Germany (when it comes to energy) are called “sick man of Europe”:
“… the changes needed to accommodate large amounts of variable renewable energy on the grid, in particular thousands of kilometers of new power lines and the ramping up of energy storage, are not happening quickly enough.”
“However, another concern is the rising cost of the Fits scheme that has driven Germany’s huge renewable roll out: it now costs bill payers €14bn a year. An official at the economic ministry, which uneasily shares responsibility with environment for energy policy, warns that a tipping point will come when CONSUMERS WILL REFUSE to pay more for new renewables.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution)
“ He cautioned, however, that his Federal Network Agency’s assessment shows that more and swifter investment is needed to upgrade the electricity grid to cope with the influx of UNSTABLE and geographically DISPERSED renewable energies.”
“…it derives most of its wind power from the country’s north, but demand is highest in the strongly industrialized south.”
“To cope with that challenge, the agency estimates that Germany needs to build another 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of high voltage lines — at an estimated cost of some €20 billion ($26 billion).”
(http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-29/german-official-renewable-energy-beats-forecasts)
“At issue is the German Renewable Energy Act, which requires power companies to buy wind and solar energy from producers at fixed prices, which are much higher than electricity produced by traditional methods such as coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. At the same time, power-hungry industries receive generous subsidies – the country’s largest industrial consumers use some 18 percent of the electricity produced but pay only 0.3 percent of the extra costs generated by the mandated feed-in tariffs. German consumers have to COUGH UP the difference.”
“ … – particularly the offshore windparks being built in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea off the country’s north coast. Many of those projects are at A STANDSTILL, WITH NO WAY TO DELIVER THE POWER …” “…but again it will be German consumers who will ultimately suffer.”
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-addresses-problems-with-renewable-energy-subsidy-system-a-852549.html)
Guys! I was arguing with this:
`…One interesting possibility is that the CO2 belching fossil fuel utility companies are spinning their generators up to full power, and are simply discarding vast amounts of excess energy, until solar or wind output drops – so they can be ready to dump extra capacity onto the grid at a moment’s notice….`
The spinning reserve is the way to keep the system stability, not be running the generators at full power (thermal power plant boiler at full steam output and dumping the steam through by-pass, or having a huge load bank at the generator terminals, or whatever discarding vast amount of excess energy“ actually means) Spinning reserve fuel consumption (in a simple scenario of having one plant on standby, synchronised but at no load) is about 20% of the full load consumption of the thermal coal based plant. If somebody has better figures please correct me, but it is not 100% that is certain.
Spinning reserve results in extra capital costs and operating costs (including extra fuel and extra CO2 emissions). Renewables require extra spinning reserve (over and beyond the regular requirements) in the system due to their inherent unreliability.
Richard, nice paper you referenced. However I did not find anything in there which would contradict my statement.
P.S.: I will not argue this point anymore. Have better things to do. Cheers.
Catcracking says:
July 28, 2014 at 6:38 pm
“Power plant can be loaded from spinning reserve to full load in the matter of minutes. Basically what is needed to increase of the coal flow.”
Although I am not intimately involved in coal fired power plants I am quite aware of large refining and chemical process units, hydrogen generating furnaces, etc; and no unit goes from 20% to even 70 % production in “minutes”
When you say minutes are you talking about 5 minutes or 50?
Normally when someone say “ready in a matter of minutes” one thinks several which I suspect is impossible to achieve with a moderately large coal fired plant. I suspect that feed of coal via blowers and increased steam production cannot be achieved in minutes and load distributed to te grid without burning out the “tubes”
Definition of spinning reserve:
Spinning reserve`class one` …. frequency controller. response time 1 to 5 seconds
Spinning reserve `class two`……. load variation controller response time 10 minutes.
The same as before: I will not argue this point anymore. Cheers.
Spinning reserve not relevant. they run the lignite plant at 100%. install a bleed line to condenser. this just takes excess steam , so that power is not generated. As power is required they close the bypass line. instant power on call. add in four small hydraulic coupled alternators and they can virtually ramp in any amount of power as required.
“Coal and gas electricity companies are being paid up to 400x times the wholesale price of power…”
Plain wrong.
Sometimes, “the wholesale price of power” is zero, or even negative. Thanks the renewables. Try to calculate then “what they pay”.
[show a link or references, otherwise your claim is just that, a claim .mod]
I think we can blame the deterioration of German intellect on 2 factors:
a) Chasing away the Askenazim.
b) 70 years of relentless propaganda by the Nazi broadcasting system which had been repurposed after WW 2 by SHAEF. And which today is still forcibly financed by a household fee collecting 8 bn EUR / year – think of the BCC, only much much worse.
In NJ the electricity companies that deliver to your home are required to include a significant % of green renewable energy which significantly increases our electricity cost. See below:
SREC trade data for prior months and Reporting/Energy Years is available on the page below and includes all SREC trade data from SREC trading inception on 08.14.04 through the present month.
http://www.njcleanenergy.com/srecpricing
Note that the average purchase price for mandated renewable energy has been around 18 cents per kwh whereas the maximum that was paid was 62 cents/kwh in MAY 2014.
Wonder why our electricity costs are going up? In the near future NJ will be shutting down one Nuclear plant and several coal fired plants. .
David Larsen says:
July 28, 2014 at 10:37 am
Nah, the Germans have been that stupid all along. Their propensity to abstract thinking makes them vulnerable to all of the ideologies of whatever age one happens to be in. We had Kaiser Wilhelm and his batty foreign policy and aggressive expansion, based upon his quasi-social-Darwinism; we had Hitler and his scapegoating of Jews and his robbing Peter to pay Paul welfare state, designed to buy the support of the average German during the worst period of military and strategic decision-making. Now, the Germans have fallen lock-stock and barrel for the Greens’ view of the world (which in Germany, has its roots in the Nazi views on environment and nature). So this is nothing new – German stupidity has been both a blessing and a curse to the rest of the world.
janus says:
July 29, 2014 at 6:51 am
Sorry I did not see any reference that you provided that indicates that a coal fired plant can go from 20% to full load in minutes without using the technique mentioned by Grey Lensman which is neither clean re CO2 emissions or an efficient use of fuel. One of the messages of the original post made that point. Your reference of “Spinning reserve `class two`……. load variation controller response time 10 minutes” is an objective and in no way proves that a lignite coal fired plant can achieve it. A better reference is welcome. I believe that gas turbines can probably achieve the objective but someone might prove me wrong.
The following comes from Wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Demand_(electric_power)
also confirms the wasteful of most “spinning reserve).
“The power utilities are able to predict to a reasonable accuracy (generally to within one or two percent) the demand pattern throughout any particular day. This means that the free market in electricity is able to schedule just enough base load in advance. Any remaining imbalance would then be due either to inaccuracies in the prediction, or unscheduled changes in supply (such as a power station fault) and/or demand. Such imbalances are removed by requesting generators to operate in so called frequency response mode (also called frequency control mode), altering their output continuously to keep the frequency near the required value.
The grid frequency is a system-wide indicator of overall power imbalance. For example, it will drop if there is too much demand because generators will start to slow down slightly. A generator in frequency-response mode will, under nominal conditions, run at reduced output in order to maintain a buffer of spare capacity. It will then continually alter its output on a second-to-second basis to the needs of the grid with droop speed control.
This spinning reserve is a significant expense to the power utilities as often fuel must be burned or potential power sales lost to maintain it. The kind of generation used for fast response is usually fossil fuel powered which produces emissions of between 0.48 and 1.3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for every megawatt hour (MWh) generated. Thus a significant environmental burden, in the form of increased greenhouse gas emissions, is associated with this imbalance.”
This might also help to explain why German electricity is three times the price of American, they are paying for three system producers.
[show a link or references, otherwise your claim is just that, a claim .mod]
Easily
http://energytransition.de/2014/05/german-power-prices-negative-over-weekend/
In the end it will be
“who runs barter town”
Fossil fuels.