Germany has a new short compound word… “Dunkelflaute” dark becalmed as a direct translation, meaning when the sun is obscured by thick fog, like it is now and no wind, also as it is right now, then the renewable energy sources go off the grid and are no longer able to supply power for Germanys Energiewende, meaning that the price of energy has skyrocketed and large energy hungry industry is in panic and getting ready for potentially having to reduce production even after coal plants are being fired up to try and compensate for the energy gap.
It has been said that this is just a taste of the winter to come, but not to worry Scholzy has told us that Germany now receives most of its energy from renewables.
So there.
Poaring smoke from smokestacks into fog is not a solution.
3 Likes
It’s far from new, Dunkelflaute is the direct result of the Energiewende. Both terms are more than a decade old.
Hans-Werner Sinn, among many others, has been pointing out the problematic consequences since forever.
For the Greens however that’s not a problem at all, Habeck for instance is on the record saying “Wir brauchen keine Autofirmen” (we don’t need car companies). Good luck, VW, if he becomes Kanzler.
1 Like
It’s relatively new, but part from a few scares it hasnt been a thing because there were still enough plants online to take up the slack, now there aren’t and the Dunkelflaute (I think Dark Doldrums could be a better translation) could become a reality with brownouts happening daily.
Electricity trading seems to be working. Prices go up as backup power stations fill the gap. So, the resource is there albeit the price is a bit higher.
But, industrial customers can choose if they want to buy electricity at fixed or variable price. In the case of variable prices, industries can get paid for consuming when prices go negative. In the case of fixed prices, there’s no higher price to be paid when electricity is scarce.
So, just wondering if industries really have a problem or everything is just political gossip. This is something where the opinion of accounting departments counts. Where are the quarter reports telling this?
1 Like
Good questions, I would expect a certain amount of hyperbole from the anti-green fractions. but why then are prices going through the roof?
Because producing electricity with natural gas burning turbines is more expensive than other methods.
I’d assume it’s a temporary hiccup. I don’t see why people portraits it as the new average.
Because the time to worry is when a politician tells you not to worry.
2 Likes
The backup capacity produces costs whether it’s running or not. This cost needs to be borne by the customers.
As a consequence, (un-regulatable) green electricity will always cost more than the regulated because there’s an additional massive cost block.
Ahhhhh, I see. The “don’t worry” should come from accountants, not politicians. I fully agree.
The Dunkelflaute is real, it’s pure luck that Germany’s electricity demand could still be met recently. This is the result when you let ideologues like Habeck decide on crucial issues - and this moron runs for Chancellor!
Here’s Markus Krebber’s comment. He’s CEO of RWE, one of Germany’s big four energy companies:
Hmm, for some reason the picture size displayed gets changed with the upload. I suggest you increase the browser’s display size.
I agree. Only that this issue predates Habeck by many years. I have always said that the nuclear phase out decision after Fukushima was Merkel’s single biggest mistake.
True. But a rational person would have at least kept the last few (four?) NPPs online (subject to their age of course) instead of shutting them down in the midst of an energy crisis.
In a way I wish for a proper undersupply for a few days, just to get the problem into everybody’s mind. Because demand will only keep increasing.
Sure. Seems like an uncureable problem with the Greens. They want to live in fantasyland.
Yes. The downside is that some other idiots will then scream even louder for “cheap Russian gas”.
With Russian oil, it looks like that’s still (again) happening, it’s the modern triangular trade. India buys cheap from Russia, refines and sells at market to Europe, and refills the tankers with Russian oil for their trip back home.
India’s oil exports to Europe, mainly diesel, have increased from $6 billion to $20 billion (25 million tons) over the last few years.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if something similar happened with gas.
According to a report by “Focus” magazine, Germany´s energy suppliers can ration electricity to people who use too much, like households with Wärmepumpen and E-Autos.
To me that reads like we are to expect brownouts in the very near future.
Good luck with charging your car with a Hamster in a wheel and making yourself believe that its cool to be cold.
Fack me, when did the bright 21st century future become so dark?
Heat pumps? Ours uses just a fraction as our electric boiler did. Or are the “air” ones less efficient than the geo thermal?
I could not tell you, only that the greenies are looking at them with suspicion for using too much energy. Of course this is after telling everybody to install heatpumps and buy electric cars.
Not our ‘greenies’.
Sure. But the normal use case is a switch from gas/oil to heat pump which adds electric consumption. Electric heating is rare and was a thing of the 80s in most places. Places like Norway being an exception.