It’s the first time I hear about final consumers paying spot prices. What’s the reason for it? Ecological activism?
About 30% do
oce@jlai.lu 11 months ago
olutukko@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Because at its cheapest it can be even free. For a long time last summer it was only like cents, sometimes even cheaper and at best negative. And the fixed contracts have been expensive for a while now in finland. I’m paying 8cents/kwh with the conract I got last fall. I got it because I was skeptical about prices at winter and I’m so glad I took that contract
vaionko@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
And at one point, due to an error, it was tens of cents negative. You were literally getting paid to use electricity. Though, we’re paying it back now.
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Some people were even running electric heaters outside. Stupid but hilarious.
018118055@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Fixed rates on renewal went crazy after the war started. Now it’s possible to choose low-load times for running dishwasher etc. On average the spot price is lower than available fixed rates, although some lucky people locked in long cheap contracts before February 2022. Most of those will expire this or next month at latest. It’s certainly easier to have a fixed price contract.
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Plans like that started gaining popularity in the recent years as in general they were cheaper than ones with fixed prices. Then because of the Russian invasion the prices skyrocketed with daily averages of even 30 and 40 cents and people were in deep trouble with their electric bills and many of them scrambled to get 20 - 30c/kWh one year long plans to save their asses. However the spot prices then dropped back to 3 to 4 cents for the spring and summer and now those people were stuck with their fixed price plans and are paying 10x the spot prices. Personally I just decided to gamble with the spot priced plan as my 6c/kWh plan had just ended and the 8 to 12 cents plans are all 1 to 2 years long. Despite freak days like this, on average, I’m still probably paying less than I would have with a fixed price plan.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So not mildly infuriating, but fuckaroundandfindout?
boredtortoise@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Anti-ecological maybe.
Consumers have chosen the spot deals because of the lowest possible prices with disregard to the high points and consumption.
oce@jlai.lu 11 months ago
At the opposite, price is usually high when demand is high because of cold temperature. Because of the high price, you’re motivated to consume less, and that’s a good thing for the grid. It’s also a good thing for the carbon footprint because usually this is when the most polluting plants are activated, gas first, then fuel and coal. The problem is rather the risk for personal finance. That’s why I thought mostly ecological activists would be motivated enough to take this risk.
boredtortoise@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I’d see you as an exception to the spot consumers here. Very admirable perspective!
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 11 months ago
I’m surprised that those 30% don’t have batteries to shift load times
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Those batteries would never pay themselves back.
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 11 months ago
I'm in the UK on an agile tariff and I'm not quite so sure - it depends on a number of things. Sure my batteries were bought primarily to support my solar panels. but I've been making quite a lot of money this winter.
- There are times when it is windy and there is low demand, when prices actually go negative - fill your batteries and make money
- The differential between lowest and highest price per kWh is often 30p so filling up when it is 10p and using when it is 45p makes sense.
- The grid will sometimes pay you large amounts of money with a few hours notice that they will pay you a premium to discharge your batteries when demand is predicted to be extremely high - to avoid them cranking up coal power stations. In November and December I made £90 just from this - and I only have 5Kwh batteries.
I haven't run the figures on payback times if the batteries were just for shifting and not solar - but they might just pay themselves back.
red@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
The math has been done multiple times. The batteries don’t pay themselves back, and also need to be replaced from time to time.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Time to install a wood stove.
alvvayson@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Interesting.
At these temperatures, I can’t imagine air source heat pumps being very efficient.
I would probably have a spare gas, oil or wood based heater and use that for days like this.
Zaros@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Older houses definitely have them… but there was this trend at some point to renavate older houses and remove the oil heaters and fireplaces and wood heated saunas, and replace everything with electric ones. Why? No idea, trends are weird.
psud@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Electricity is usually less polluting than the various fuels, wood fires especially will fill a valley with smoke, the rest are mostly to avoid the carbon dioxide
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Carbon monoxide too… and chimney fires… don’t forget about indoor emissions with open stoves… Even if you don’t care about the environment, electric wins the health&safety race by a landslide. Forgetting to do the maintenance on a heat pump doesn’t exactly carry the same risks as with a wood stove.
Heat pumps are expensive and electricity can vary in price (who in their right mind opts in to spot pricing without on-site power generation tho, what the hell). Still, it’s not hard to see why everyone who can afford it is electrifying.
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Newer models are actually.
We had negative 30 C the last two days and our air-to-air kept the whole upper floor comfortable. 90 m².
Granted it’s a brand new and very well insulated house, but -30 bites well on those too!
Most houses up here have other electric alternatives or a fireplace.
Gas and oil are beyond abnormal to have and I think oil is even illegal in Norway now…
Don’t quote me on that though
alvvayson@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Wow, air to air even?
But do you know what the COP is at -30?
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Here is a link to it
I must make a small correction though: The last night with -30 it struggled a bit. Only managed to keep the upper floor at 19 °C so we had to turn on the cables to get over the peak.
I’m still mightily impressed by it though!
Max consumption was 32 kW/day, so roughly 4-5 € pr/day with our prices.
qaz@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What about a solar panel + electric heater.
Linssiili@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Well, here (in middle of finland) the sun set at 14:30, so there wasn’t all that much solar energy available
nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
It think above -20C or so, cold weather heat pumps are still way more efficient than resistive electric heating.
Good R-factor insulation is probably the most important upgrade in OP’s case. There are people where I live in the Northeast who heat their homes almost exclusively with the waste heat from cooking, electronics or old incandescent lighting. They have like R-30+ homes and really neat ventilation designs for cooling in the summer too.
I had plans to build a tiny home with Vacuum insulated panels and a small marine stove for heat, until we had a child and plans changed.
Now I’m looking at a solar battery setup with geothermal heat pump that will probably cost nearly what the whole tiny home was gonna be.
DanglingFury@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Solar is quite poor in Northern winters. Wind + solar + heat would be a better bet, but the battery required to heat your house for more than a day with low winds would be prohibitively expensive. A wood stove would be the best bet
018118055@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Finland has about 5.2GW of wind capacity vs 4.3 nuclear. If it’s a windy day the spot price will usually be low.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Heat pumps only work to about -4c.