By P Gosselin
Two brief periods of wind doldrums and Germany’s power supply reaches its limits …
German Chemical Industry Association: “It’s desperate.”
By Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
From November 2 to November 8 and from December 10 to December 13, Germany’s electricity supply from renewable energies collapsed as a typical winter weather situation with a lull in the wind and minimal solar irradiation led to supply shortages, high electricity imports and skyrocketing electricity prices.
At times, over 20,000 MW, more than a quarter of Germany’s electricity requirements, had to be imported. Electricity prices rose tenfold (93.6 €ct/kWh). Companies that did not have long-term contracts had to cease production. Wolfgang Große Entrup, Managing Director of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI): “It’s desperate. Our companies and our country cannot afford fair-weather production. We urgently need power plants that can step in safely.”
The reason: The socialist/green led coalition government and the prior Merkel governments had decommissioned 19 nuclear power plants (30% of Germany’s electricity demand) and 15 coal-fired power plants were taken off the grid on April 1, 2023 alone. 4.35 billion euros of taxpayers’ money in decommissioning premiums were distributed to RWE and LEAG (East Germany). In January 2025, RWE’s Weisweiler power plant will go offline. This, of all months, will occur in January, when electricity consumption in Germany is at its highest and France may have little to supply. This is because France is the most heat-sensitive country in Europe and even small fluctuations in temperature can have an impact on electricity consumption due to the widespread use of electric heating systems. 1 degree Celsius less and consumption in France increases by 2400 megawatts!
But Germany’s misguided energy policy of switching off secure power is now also causing our neighbors to have economic difficulties. Southern Norway, southern Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands saw similarly high electricity prices as Germany did during the dark doldrums (see chart above, the figures are in €/MWh, to convert to €ct/kWh, you have to divide by 10).
Denmark, whose electricity supply is also based on wind power (56%), also exacerbated the malaise there by importing electricity from Scandinavia.
Norway’s energy minister in the center-left government, Terja Aasland, wants to cut the power cable to Denmark and renegotiate the electricity contracts with Germany. He is thus responding to the demands of the right-wing Progress Party, which has been calling for this for a long time and will probably win the next elections. According to the Progress Party, the price infection from the south must be stopped.
Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch was even clearer: “It is difficult for an industrial economy to rely on the benevolence of the weather gods for its prosperity.” And directly to Habeck’s green policy: “No political will is strong enough to override the laws of physics – not even Mr. Habeck’s.”
It is also often forgotten that wind turbines consume electricity when they are stationary or switched off. This is because all technical components (oil pumps, fans, control systems, etc.) must remain in operation even when they are still. Vestas specifies an electricity consumption of 55,000 kWh per year for a 4.2 MW turbine at standstill. During production times, the turbine supplies itself with electricity. But it is virtually idle 120 days a year.
If we assume an average self-consumption of 40,000 kWh per year for all German turbines, we arrive at 1.2 terawatt hours, the generation of a medium-sized gas-fired power plant To apply this to our dark, windless doldrums: to supply the wind turbines, a power plant with around 400 MW would have to run or the same output would have to be imported for days on end to prevent the wind turbines from going down.
Complete article at Klimanachrichten.
Guest blogger, if you can show how subsidies for greenstuff can be increased while deindustrialising the economy to China etc AND maintaining living standards…
Tell Rachel Reeves and flywheel Miliband.
This is what the Greens want, demand management is the fluffy label, rationing is the truth.
It’s mind boggling to think that people who are in charge of countries can be so absolutely thick as bricks. Or is it deliberate?
Too bad they never show Russia’s energy prices. Same gas…
I don’t remember the laws of physics changing, the situation is the same as 20 years ago. If the laws of physics say no today, then they said no 20 years ago and will say no 20 years in the future. That’s the real tragedy, everyone knew.
This chart illustrates how German bids pushed up power prices in Norway in the Oslo region on 12th December. No wonder the Norwegians want to cut the interconnector.
Will someone in a position to do so please point all this out toi Ed Milliband the next time he waffles on about energy security and escaping the volatility of world markets.
So, by my calculations, a non-generating wind turbine consumes 6.28 kilowatt hours per hour, which equals over 150 kilowatt hours per day! Multiply that by thousands of turbines and you’re into megawatt hours per day! For the UK, that could be a significant percentage of national consumption on a day when the turbines aren’t working… You couldn’t make it up!
This should be the take away for everyone. “This is because all technical components (oil pumps, fans, control systems, etc.) must remain in operation even when they are still. Vestas specifies an electricity consumption of 55,000 kWh per year for a 4.2 MW turbine at standstill. During production times, the turbine supplies itself with electricity. But it is virtually idle 120 days a year.”
A further thought: if things get so bad that the power companies have to start load-shedding (i.e. make selective power cuts) are the unproductive wind turbines kept supplied at the expense of domestic consumers?
NOT CORRECT:
Stop using average capacity and nameplate maximums MW for wind, or solar!
Look at any hour of wind or solar and see if it has delivered every minute at nameplate MW. Odds are it has not.
Grid capacity is for a dependable, schedulable, stable full time capacity…like nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas.
Wind and solar vary every minute..with wind changes in speed or direction or clouds.
Any lower output for solar or wind is instantly made-up by RUNNING rotational generation.
As for energy output, perhaps look at nameplate MW-minutes / hour. (capacity at every minute in hour)…and compare wind/solar output to any dispatchable rotational generation output.
As a requirement for grid connection: all generators must “make-up” capacity deficiencies on site….before supplying to grid. A continuous energy requirement…and correct for AC voltage, and power factor.
Sporadic generation is a physical demand on the grid, and huge cost to taxpayers/customers.
Re the interconnectors and market issues. I recall the first gas interconnector being installed (I was a metering engineer for one of the large oil companies at the time) we had “skin in the game” ….
the marketing guys told me then – and it came to pass – that the mere fact of a pipeline would mean the market would do its thing with respect to price. No gas molecules actually had to flow in either direction to see this. I suspect the same is true of electrons and the power ICs.
Talk of low prices, energy independence and connection to the mainland grid is pretty much nonsense.
Generally the “dead” of winter occurs around mid January, three weeks from now, and the following sixty days can be quite brutal at times. I guess we can all get our bags of popcorn and (assuming we don’t live in this morass) enjoy the show. Like an addict, sometimes you really have to hit rock bottom before a change can occur.
“It is also often forgotten that wind turbines consume electricity when they are stationary or switched off.
Interesting- had no clue about that.
Our deeper history demonstrates a desire to produce efficient sources of energy which are both cost effective and efficient. In this regard coal, gas, hydro and nuclear have proven themselves many times over something that wind and solar will never do because their whole development history is back to front..
What we need to hear from the so called experts is why any economy needs expensive intermittent sources of energy which are many times dirtier than fossil fuel especially when they come to the end of their life. How much is that clean up operation going to cost and who is responsible and contracted to pay for it?
There is no such thing as clean green energy however you honestly look at it but at least some fuels do their jobs with minimum fuss which is why we use them on a large scale.
Miliband has history and is just another nasty dirty piece of work which makes you wonder how Britain’s main political parties manage to ever recruit these people. . .
During the 1972-3 Three Day I was working in a factory which had several continuous processes that couldn’t be easily be stopped and restarted. Because of this power was maintained when there was a scheduled shut down. I am now wondering what our new government is going to do if blackouts are needed when the inevitable happens. Will they support industry?
All according to plan, the Marxists are grinning ear to ear. The question is ….. how much will the people put up with?
Germans blame the Russians for lack of wind
Colluding with Donnald Trump, as usual.
Remember Jane Lubchenco’s idea for a National Climate Service?
She said the new service could provide information for citing wind farms,
“If you want to, for example, create a wind farm, you really want to know what the weather will be, what the wind patterns will be like the next 100 years, not what they’ve been like the last 100 years.”
Of course that was ludicrous. But that was Jane’s forte. Ludicrous idea and lying.
She has likely been the most dishonest science “expert” in history.
Her fabrication of human caused, Climate Change ocean “Dead Zones” is exhibit A.
Her NPR interview about her National Climate Service idea is here.
https://www.npr.org/2010/02/12/123651132/government-plans-national-climate-service
This tragedy is an education problem. The ‘deciders’ never learned to add, but they know how to subtract. AND, they know they will never be held to account for moronic choices.
Europe is not alone in this debacle, the weather for the late December and early January across much of the USA will be low wind and no sun – our dunkelflaute. Wind turbines will not produce, but will consume electricity, PV will lie uselessly on the ground.
BUT, remember that this lack of power is a secret in the minds of the ‘deciders’ there is plenty for themselves, and that is the important thing.
I read all the comments, even RGs, not a word from the usual suspects, Izaak, Warren, Nick and Rusty. I wonder why?
Following the near collapse of the Alberta grid last January when it dropped to -43 degrees C in Edmonton, I investigated how much power the ~1000 wind turbines use in electrical power to stay warm. The turbines are in a windy area but they shut down at -28 to -30 C due to gearbox temperature issues. (In hot weather they have an upper limit due to overheating.)
This power draw number was very difficult to obtain. It is not normally reported. I can say that it seems to be on the order of 150 kW each, not counting blade heating for de-icing which would have to be provided before re-starting.
If anyone has better information please post it here with a source.
I wrote to the local MPP and suggested that for producers that have a 100% guaranteed offtake contract (which is common for RE) they can have that, but when they disconnect from the grid during a supply emergency due to issues inherent in their design, they are not allowed to draw power from the grid as they wish. If their equipment needs to be heated while off, they must provide it as part of the technology package. They are not allowed to draw from the grid until power is available – spare – in order to heat the unit up to operating temperature and when weather permits operation.
People are more important than machines at -40 degrees. The grid operator was on the verge of implementing rotating power cuts while feeding ~150 MW into standing wind turbines. Electricity in the depths of winter is a life and death issue. Once a home water system freezes, it won’t thaw until spring. Forced air furnaces have electric fans. Home oxygen systems have compressors.
It happens that I live within 40 km of 2 coal-fired power plants that were shuttered, each of which has centuries of coal available. Meanwhile due to federal policies and carbon taxes, coal for heating has gone from $11/ton to $195/ton in a few short years.
This is insane, if Germany and Denmark want to slit their wrists that is their business, I don’t feel sorry for them. Why on earth would the rest of Europe force their citizens to sacrifice for Germany and Denmark’s ignorance?
The author reports:
It is also often forgotten that wind turbines consume electricity when they are stationary or switched off. This is because all technical components (oil pumps, fans, control systems, etc.) must remain in operation even when they are still. Vestas specifies an electricity consumption of 55,000 kWh per year for a 4.2 MW turbine at standstill. During production times, the turbine supplies itself with electricity. But it is virtually idle 120 days a year.
Comment: $5000/yr at $0.10/KWh. Pennies. But a turbine doesn’t sit idle, during lack of demand the turbine is rotated to relieve bearing stress from that heavy propeller out at the end of the main shaft, and the propeller needs that rotation to prevent warping from differential heating on the blades. Actual consumption is much higher. Is there one watt hour meter on one turbine anywhere in the world that’s recording this “interesting’ metric? I don’t think so. No wind farm should be without at least one turbine with a watthour meter for recording imported power.