Author Topic: "Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)  (Read 79218 times)

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Offline tom66Topic starter

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That is something else and IMHO very unlikely to happen because it means the electricity generation & distribution is falling short (as if you are living in a third world country). In the end you can't predict peak demand. Over here the trains are on strike so everybody who has a car, goes to work with a car. How to plan for that with a system that inherently isn't able to deal with peak demand?

It's already happening! 

https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/

These are not the only guys offering it.

Nothing about this signals failure of the grid, there are obviously better times to add more load like an EV to charge.  In summer time, the UK regularly has days where wind is the only power source for hours at a time.  If there's nothing to soak that demand up, it's wasted capacity.

As wind and solar become more and more dominant then the frequency of these days will increase.

I do agree vehicle to grid discharge is not a great idea right now (though as battery tech improves it may make more sense.)  Vehicle to home for backup though, that's a *fantastic* idea.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house

Funnily enough - this seems to be a rough ballpark figure of heating energy spent anywhere. Houses in colder climates are just insulated better, because there is natural motivation to do so.

My house uses around 15MWh per year, and it's built in 1952 and energy renovated in 1982. Original insulation is sawdust + wood chip mix, 100mm in walls, and 300mm in ceiling and floor, plus walls have some wood fiber board for some extra insulation. In 1982, 50mm of mineral wool was added to outside walls.

Modern houses per current regulations use like 300mm of modern-day mineral wool in the walls, and 500mm or even 600mm in the attic. We have finally realized how important airtightness is, so newly build houses are actually pressure tested to prove absence of air leaks. As a result, modern houses consume very little heating energy, even given the cold climate. But we still see the magical number ~15MWh/year around, though, because people just build larger and larger houses, and as a result, are more and more in debt!

It seems to be some kind of magical constant, people can psychologically afford spending 10-25MWh/year for heating so that is what they do. If they live in warmer climate, they insulate very poorly, and get to that number. If they live in colder climate, they insulate better, only to get to the same number. If they want a bigger house, they will insulate even better.

What needs to change is the absolute value of this number, because energy is more expensive, a limited resource we have overused for decades. One way is to use heatpumps, for example, my 15MWh of heat comes from approx. 6MWh of electricity because of the heatpump. Another option is better insulation. And obviously - both.

Also the fact people used to live in 100m^2 houses with large families (say 4-5 kids), and now you suddenly need 250m^2 for no kids or 1-2 kids.

Combine all this knowledge and try to see if you could live in a 100m^2 house again, insulate it better, and use heatpump, and that 15MWh is down to 3-4MWh. A totally massive drop.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2022, 12:51:37 pm by Siwastaja »
 

Offline JohanH

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Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house

Funnily enough - this seems to be a rough ballpark figure of heating energy spent anywhere. Houses in colder climates are just insulated better, because there is natural motivation to do so.


Here too, electrical consumption about 15 MWh/year. House is 145 m^2.

Last year the heatpump used 4700 kWh electricity and produced 17600 kWh heat energy (heating 13600 kWh and hot water 4000 kWh).
 

Offline madires

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It's going to be much more important to properly insulate homes rather than increase generation.

Proper insulation is a prerequisite for heat pumps. Of course it also helps to reduce gas and fuel oil usage for classic heating systems. Anyhow, it's expensive.
 

Offline tom66Topic starter

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In normal times, 12000kWh per year of gas would cost about £400. 

So if you could halve that you would save £200 per year.

Even if you assume a 10 year payback time, there's not a huge amount you can do to improve energy efficiency for £2,000.  Most savings calculators state things like underfloor insulation costs £4,000 to install and saves you £67 per year, what's the point?  People would rather go on holiday.

As for living in a smaller house?  There's no reason you can't insulate a big house too, to the point where the losses are quite small.  Besides, we spend so much time at home, it would be a disappointment to not have enough space to relax and do things that we want.
 

Offline madires

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The problem with subsidies is that they just increase the price.
The problem with consumers trying to get a competetive bid is information assymetry.

It's part of the problem. But subsidies too. Over here we have program to promote heat pumps (subsidies up to 40% (was even 50% not long ago)). Besides the poor availability of heat pumps at the moment, the program keeps the prices high. There's no incentive or need for competition. I guess, there's no direct monetary loss for customers because of the high subsidies, but it's still tax money.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Proper insulation is a prerequisite for heat pumps.

Where is this meme coming from?

These things (heatpumps, insulation) are totally orthogonal.

Quite the opposite, (e.g. ground source) heatpumps are specifically being recommended here in old, poorly insulated buildings (with maybe some historical or sentimental value); of course, because poorly insulated houses consume more heat, there is more (absolute) potential for savings.

For example, a well insulated house needing 9MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 6MWh/year of energy. A poorly insulated house needing 27MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 18MWh/year of energy.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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In normal times, 12000kWh per year of gas would cost about £400. 

This is just absolutely, ridiculously cheap. You need to realize what kind of privilege this has been to you.

Consider Finland. Our "gas" has always been oil, oil heating systems have been hugely popular. "Normal time" cost (in 2010's pre-NWO and everything) for heating oil has been like 0.90EUR/liter i.e. 12000kWh would cost 1100EUR. And no one complained about it (except of course those who complain about everything).
 
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Offline tszaboo

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Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house

Funnily enough - this seems to be a rough ballpark figure of heating energy spent anywhere.
Houses here actually come with an energy label. Like eg. the fridge, same colors and everything, goes from G to A++.
You are only allowed to sell the house if you have this.
F is about 380 kWh/sqm,  A+ is 105 and A+++ is 50. We can calculate 80 for a small, 120 sqm for an average Dutch house.
I got label of A, which is 160 when I bought my home, now it's probably a bit better because I put solar panels on it. And it's time to replace the roof windows, from HR to HR++ or something.

I talked with Dutch people and they said that the house is built to handle the cold. And I was laughing at it, after I compared the joke of the isolation here to the standard that I'm used to.
So yeah. Rating of A would mean 19000 kwh/year. And that's a very good rating here, I see houses with rating of D and E on the market, already sold. 
Funny stuff is, I used 50GJ last year for heating, which is 14000kWh (and 2000kWh for electricity), very much the same that you suggested.

Also, with the current prices, I was calculating an airco heatpump would be 50% cheaper than district heating.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2022, 02:40:52 pm by tszaboo »
 
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Offline Siwastaja

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Houses here actually come with an energy label. Like eg. the fridge, same colors and everything, goes from G to A++.
You are only allowed to sell the house if you have this.
F is about 380 kWh/sqm,  A+ is 105 and A+++ is 50. We can calculate 80 for a small, 120 sqm for an average Dutch house.
I got label of A, which is 160 when I bought my home

And of course, here the calculation is somewhat more complicated - but playing around with one Excel calculator I could find, it seems 160 kWh/m^2/year (with fossil fuel multiplier 1.0) gives label of D.

And because this is already per consumed energy, it already takes the climate into account; we already need to apply more insulation given your standards, and then a lot more to meet our much stricter standards.

And this is the problem - Finns are, as always, required to do so much more than the others, and in addition we need to pay for Germany's cheap gas contracts. But it's pretty close to being game over, we have very little left and are on the brink of a national suicide.

OTOH, I don't complain about the requirement of insulation. It's the right thing to do. It would be nice if others insulated their homes, too, instead of buying Putin's fart gas, because we are the ones who have to sit next to Russia even if we don't use their gas.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2022, 03:01:10 pm by Siwastaja »
 
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Offline james_s

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It's part of the problem. But subsidies too. Over here we have program to promote heat pumps (subsidies up to 40% (was even 50% not long ago)). Besides the poor availability of heat pumps at the moment, the program keeps the prices high. There's no incentive or need for competition. I guess, there's no direct monetary loss for customers because of the high subsidies, but it's still tax money.

There are subsidies for heat pumps and high efficiency gas furnaces here too. The problem is they require installation by a licensed professional contractor in order to qualify for the subsidy. It is much cheaper to install the equipment myself and skip the subsidy than to hire some goober to charge me a fortune to mess up the job. The rare occasions when I have hired a contractor to do something I have never been totally satisfied with the result, very few take the pride in quality craftsmanship and attention to detail that I do.
 

Offline tom66Topic starter

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UK homes have energy ratings too, from A to F if I recall correctly.  Our home is a D currently.  Adding solar panels and insulating it properly will get it up to B.  It requires a huge amount of effort to get an older house to A, and is probably not worth doing.

The sad thing is new homes are being built with C rating,  and this is the plan until 2035(!!),  ours is 90 years old and it has only one lower rating, wtf?
 

Offline richard.cs

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UK homes have energy ratings too, from A to F if I recall correctly.  Our home is a D currently.  Adding solar panels and insulating it properly will get it up to B.  It requires a huge amount of effort to get an older house to A, and is probably not worth doing.

The sad thing is new homes are being built with C rating,  and this is the plan until 2035(!!),  ours is 90 years old and it has only one lower rating, wtf?
The UK scheme also rates by energy cost, rather than energy input, so a home with a more expensive energy source can get a lower score even if it is better insulated.

Another weird artefact of the UK rating scheme is many new-build developers hit the minimum rating by means of adding some trivial amount of solar panels, just enough to scrape through and no more (see here https://goo.gl/maps/qqpsC5M4pH9XzyTEA as an example where most properties have 2 or 3 small panels as a box ticking exercise). These tiny panels then make it much harder for an owner to install a sensible-sized PV system because they're in the way and built into the roof.
 

Offline nctnico

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That is something else and IMHO very unlikely to happen because it means the electricity generation & distribution is falling short (as if you are living in a third world country). In the end you can't predict peak demand. Over here the trains are on strike so everybody who has a car, goes to work with a car. How to plan for that with a system that inherently isn't able to deal with peak demand?

It's already happening! 

https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/

These are not the only guys offering it.
No, this is just optimisation for cost, not for optimising the load on the infrastructure. There are a lot of places where the grid just can't handle the amount of renewable energy being generated. So the electricity comes for free but there is no way to get it to the outlet where you need it.

The sad thing is new homes are being built with C rating,  and this is the plan until 2035(!!),  ours is 90 years old and it has only one lower rating, wtf?
That is insane! The additional costs to build a home with an A rating will be earned back quickly. I mean, how much does it cost extra to make the insulation a few cm thicker and install a ventilation system? My home is nearly 30 years old and it has an A rating (partly due to being on district heating though).
« Last Edit: August 31, 2022, 04:10:51 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline madires

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Proper insulation is a prerequisite for heat pumps.

Where is this meme coming from?

These things (heatpumps, insulation) are totally orthogonal.

Quite the opposite, (e.g. ground source) heatpumps are specifically being recommended here in old, poorly insulated buildings (with maybe some historical or sentimental value); of course, because poorly insulated houses consume more heat, there is more (absolute) potential for savings.

For example, a well insulated house needing 9MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 6MWh/year of energy. A poorly insulated house needing 27MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 18MWh/year of energy.

Of course you can argue that with any COP/efficiency better than simply burning gas or fuel oil you'll need to buy less energy. But why stopping there if adding insulation lowers that dramatically more? So you can pay for a proper insulation or have to buy more/larger heat pumps to get the heat power needed. Without insulation you'll also need a higher flow temperature to keep your home warm (limit of typical heat pumps is about 40-45°C). The next point is that all the additional required electricity has to be generated. This will not happen over night and we don't have fusion power plants yet. It's about the whole strategy!
 

Offline richard.cs

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No, this is just optimisation for cost, not for optimising the load on the infrastructure. There are a lot of places where the grid just can't handle the amount of renewable energy being generated. So the electricity comes for free but there is no way to get it to the outlet where you need it.
That tariff is flat price within the night period so is not a good example, but the recommended charger, the Ohme one, can optimise for minimum CO2/kWh independent of price or can optimise for minimum price (with either a fixed overnight rate like that one or a dynamic tariff with half-hourly pricing). It's default behaviour on a tariff like that with 6 hours of a cheap flat rate is to pick the lowest-CO2 hours within that 6 hour window provided the required charging doesn't need 6 hours at full power.

Optimising for price on a dynamic tariff ("agile octopus" or similar) approximates optimising for charging when the ratio of supply and demand is favourable.

 

Offline nctnico

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Proper insulation is a prerequisite for heat pumps.

Where is this meme coming from?

These things (heatpumps, insulation) are totally orthogonal.

Quite the opposite, (e.g. ground source) heatpumps are specifically being recommended here in old, poorly insulated buildings (with maybe some historical or sentimental value); of course, because poorly insulated houses consume more heat, there is more (absolute) potential for savings.

For example, a well insulated house needing 9MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 6MWh/year of energy. A poorly insulated house needing 27MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 18MWh/year of energy.

Of course you can argue that with any COP/efficiency better than simply burning gas or fuel oil you'll need to buy less energy. But why stopping there if adding insulation lowers that dramatically more? So you can pay for a proper insulation or have to buy more/larger heat pumps to get the heat power needed. Without insulation you'll also need a higher flow temperature to keep your home warm (limit of typical heat pumps is about 40-45°C). The next point is that all the additional required electricity has to be generated. This will not happen over night and we don't have fusion power plants yet. It's about the whole strategy!
Yep. You have to take the physical limits into account. A natural gas pipe can bring an awfull lot of energy into a home compared to the electricity connection. You can't simply disconnect the gas and assume there is enough electricity available to heat a home. Adding insulation can not be done infinitely; at some point you will have to activiely control the moisture levels in a home as well which -for an older home- means massive construction work.

The Dutch consumer's organisation (non-profit organisation) recommends people to buy hybrid boilers which are both heatpump and gas burner. When it is really cold, the gas burner kicks in.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline nctnico

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No, this is just optimisation for cost, not for optimising the load on the infrastructure. There are a lot of places where the grid just can't handle the amount of renewable energy being generated. So the electricity comes for free but there is no way to get it to the outlet where you need it.
That tariff is flat price within the night period so is not a good example, but the recommended charger, the Ohme one, can optimise for minimum CO2/kWh independent of price or can optimise for minimum price (with either a fixed overnight rate like that one or a dynamic tariff with half-hourly pricing). It's default behaviour on a tariff like that with 6 hours of a cheap flat rate is to pick the lowest-CO2 hours within that 6 hour window provided the required charging doesn't need 6 hours at full power.

Optimising for price on a dynamic tariff ("agile octopus" or similar) approximates optimising for charging when the ratio of supply and demand is favourable.
But it still doesn't help with preventing a grid or generating capacity overload which is what started the sub-thread. At some point people will want to have their EV charged enough to get to work or whatever destination they need to be at.
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Offline james_s

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That is insane! The additional costs to build a home with an A rating will be earned back quickly. I mean, how much does it cost extra to make the insulation a few cm thicker and install a ventilation system? My home is nearly 30 years old and it has an A rating (partly due to being on district heating though).

Quite a lot more at current lumber prices, at least over here. Thicker insulation in the walls means thicker walls. Thicker walls means larger wall studs, larger studs means considerably higher lumber cost and you have to make the whole house larger in order to get the same interior space. People are also notoriously bad at long term thinking, they will balk at spending extra money up front even if it is cheaper over a period of a few years.
 

Online themadhippy

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Quote
The additional costs to build a home with an A rating will be earned back quickly. I
Not by the builder though,higher material cost,higher labour cost and longer build time all either eat into there profit,or make there houses look more expensive compared to  the competition.

Quote
Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house

A big fat zero here. Electricity for everything. Annual  average around 4120 Kw ,or  around 100kw/M2,yea its a small flat.
 

Offline tom66Topic starter

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But it still doesn't help with preventing a grid or generating capacity overload which is what started the sub-thread. At some point people will want to have their EV charged enough to get to work or whatever destination they need to be at.

It could, because the charging power could be reduced to say 4kW instead of 7kW.

As long as it's charged by 7.30am, for instance, you don't care how it got there, just that it's done on time.

Also, the National Grid here is currently building another 400kV line from Scotland to the North of England as the current constraint on renewable energy there is the export over the HV lines. 
 
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Offline nctnico

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But it still doesn't help with preventing a grid or generating capacity overload which is what started the sub-thread. At some point people will want to have their EV charged enough to get to work or whatever destination they need to be at.

It could, because the charging power could be reduced to say 4kW instead of 7kW.

As long as it's charged by 7.30am, for instance, you don't care how it got there, just that it's done on time.
That is the problem right there, with insufficient grid capacity, it can't be guaranteed that your car will be charged to the requested level! Ergo, reducing charging power fixed or dynamically doesn't solve inherent grid capacity problems.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Zero999

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It's a pragmatic statement. The problem for Ukraine is the there are Russian supporters in the country. Where did I say anything about surrendering? It just there's very little the West can do to help. Besides, there are plenty of other wars gong on around the world and no one seems to give a toss. It's just the harsh reality of the situation.
In general I'm tired of fighting with russian propaganda, because we are in a state of a real war here (and I'm tired of pre-war internet wars). I went from russian electronic forums (since 2014-2015) to international ones (so did many ukrainians), because of two reasons: 1) I want for russians to cook in their own shit without me. 2) I'm tired of internet wars and tired of reading a russian imperial propaganda shit.
But I'll make some exclusion for you for a some short period of time.

'It's a pragmatic statement' - it is pragmatic to be biten by russia one-by-one, country-by-country? Haven't you learned a history of begining a  WW2?

'there are Russian supporters in the country' - there are rusian supporters in almost any country. Ukraine just the closest one to the russia (so it has the most effect), but there are some russian suporters almost all over the Europe and all over the world - in Germany, France, UK, even in the USA. So what?? For example, Does USA have to give Alyaska 'back' to the russia? It could be pragmatic, otherwise a war may beging, or other 'inconvenience' and 'hard time'.

'It just there's very little the West can do to help.' - that is a classic russian 'We all are small people, and we can't do nothing'.

'Besides, there are plenty of other wars gong on around the world and no one seems to give a toss. It's just the harsh reality of the situation.' - it is like I'm in a russian forum when I reading you. You spell exact 100% percent of a russian statements, all of them. You forget to add about America bombed Baghdad and so on.
Propaganda is everywhere and I'm sick of it. I honestly don't know what to believe half the time. Over the last two and a half years, things which were initially dismissed as conspiracy theories have later on touted as plausible by the mainstream media. I accept war is a special case and I won't comment on it again, other than to say what I see in the news doesn't make sense, considering my experience of travelling to Ukraine, interacting with the people there and recent history. The best propaganda always has an element of truth, which is exaggerated out of proportion.

As far as energy is concerned. We live in a global market. Not every country shares the same values and some will be at war, yet trade must continue, otherwise poverty all over the world will increase.
 

Offline tom66Topic starter

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That is the problem right there, with insufficient grid capacity, it can't be guaranteed that your car will be charged to the requested level! Ergo, reducing charging power fixed or dynamically doesn't solve inherent grid capacity problems.

I don't follow your logic at all.

Day ahead demand is quite easy to predict.  It's based on weather (cold days = use more because inside more, electric heating/heatpumps, etc.) and live events (TV shows, football matches and so on - the so called "TV pickup" for the UK, see below) and a few other factors.  You can certainly forecast it to within a gigawatt.  Almost all electricity is sold day-ahead, this is a robust and well tested market.

The benefit of EVs here is that they form dispatchable demand - if they're plugged in at 8pm and need say 20kWh by 7.30am, then it's now up to the energy provider to sell that into the EV.  If it turns out there's more than enough, they'll probably stay at 7kW and finish in a couple of hours.  If it's a cold winter's night and turbines are spinning slowly, then they might cut it down to 3kW.  Doing that on the grid scale with say 1 million cars would allow you to control 3-7GW of load.  It's an incredible amount of control to have.  Don't forget the demand can be phased on too.  So switch 10k cars on at a time every minute or two, allowing any power plants to come up to power slowly, and reducing frequency stability needs.  If there's a sudden frequency drop - say a HV line goes down - then you can shed gigawatts at once.  As long as the issue is fixed promptly, that won't jeopardise the completion of the charge. 

Of course, it's possible to conceive a situation where e.g. an overnight power cut happens and leaves people without charge, but no system is perfect. Petrol stations can run short of fuel too.  You can plan for such an eventuality by having extra charge than the strict minimum in your battery, e.g. charge to 80% every night, rather than 40%.

 

Offline AndyBeez

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Reality check: extortionate european gas prices mean the door is opening wide for the far right to embrace the lessons of european history.


 


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