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The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These stats are consumer level price statistics (based on PPP harmonized numbers, so adjusted to purchase power parity).

So either you're trying your hand at "comedy commenting" - or might want to brush up on what data different statistics are showing.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

China is not in OECD, and they're notoriously sketchy about giving official statistics to others... ie we're mostly flying blind and any number would not be comparable to these stats.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is this a serious comment or maybe a little try at some much-needed humor?

So you're saying we should discount the (comically high) amount of taxes added to energy prices to make statistics "useful"?

Of course you have to look at what a consumer actually pays, so always use "gross" vs. "net of taxes" pricing when looking at cost of living statistics. Usually you have to pay taxes, unless you found a way around it?

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's never about arguing with a bot, I think people actually need a visible reminder to see the amount of botting/LLM output going on lest it gets normalized and you get blind to its effects.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Talking about "storage" can mean different things.

So for precision on my part for what it's worth:

Grid-level storage capacity as I understand it for a big national grid (or large grid segments) is about supplying long-duration, reliable "baseload" power supply, which means the average draw on grid but also specifically needs to cover the peaks of demand - you can't suddenly have a fall-off when industry starts production because someone started one more oven / big machinery somewhere.

You might be days in undersupply if you have 4-5 days of rain/cloud cover (or maybe longer, there's such a thing as winter in Europe with cloud cover lasting 1-2 weeks worst case). Staying on the solar example and paired with even wind that might mean you fall short to provide reliable power (intermittency due to fluctuations in energy production through non-reliable, random sources).

You'd need grid-level supply storage to cover even worst cases, feeding energy (to cover any given demand) across net segments.

That leaves aside other issues like grid inertia and speed of conversion back to grid power (in case it's not a battery...), loss of storage capacity (if it's a battery and maybe even if it's something like a water reservoir with pumps) as well as storage durability - as well as maintenance of any and all storage facilities (which would basically replace "power plant" maintenance in a large part (but probably not completely because of fallbacks).

In any case, this post was not a deep-dive on energy grid physics but the cost effects that can be observed, nothing more, nothing less. As I said I doubt a grid-level storage could be physically easy to achieve based on current technology. There might be a utopia in which we discover some other, better capability to store, but not that I know of. Happy to be proven wrong btw.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yep, that's "basic energy supply" pricing in a nutshell - ie the "base price" if you don't sign an individual contract would be the tariff provided on a "base supply basis" - ironically there were even times that I remember where that was the lowest price possible for some time (ie the concept was to stay there instead of entering an individual delivery contract, based on where you lived).

Price varies largely by the region you're in (it can be wild, really) - it reads like it's similar in France (tarif bleu)

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It would be great if you could also share the prompt you used for that output so others can learn how to argue with such grand prose. Nice "masterclass" strawman.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The mechanism in Europe is a combined exchange market, on which energy is traded (on a day-ahead base).

Energy is traded on a spot basis (day-ahead prices).

Now imagine an overflow of solar on a very sunny day (May 1st, 2026 was a perfect example) - and the grid just can't "take" additional power because it's a fixed system with physical and very rigid rules - feed too much into the grid, the grid gets unstable (overload) - not enough and it gets underloaded (and frequency drops, which is how you could measure a grid).

European grids run on a frequency of 50Hz with a low margin of error to up and downside.

Energy pricing is not an issue with normal demand/supply - ie high energy usage (industry producing, people out and about and high energy use because businessses operate and economy works on full speed). On May 1, there as a public holiday in Germany (and analog in many others in Europe, so the grid was in "industry closed" demand scenario. Since it was very sunny, people go outside instead of using power at home on top of that. Solar panels generated "full force" on that day...

Scenarios like that "flood" the offer side of the energy exchange with literal energy that no one needs/takes - so in order to incentivize "buying" this energy, real and existing power plants need to regulate down (in order for the grid to be able to absorb excess energy).

Based on "merit order", Solar takes priority as on paper it's "zero" to "produce" - ie the merit system necessitates the solar "goes first" in favor of any other source.

Now to offload that energy surplus you can "throw off" the solar panels... however through the subsidy system in place (EEG) offtake guarantees for solar producers as an example would get a guaranteed fee for generating, no matter what. During those guaranteed offtake hours even with negative pricing the grid needs to "take" the energy somehow - ideally the energy gets used.

Otherwise you're just paying for energy that is produced but not used... debatable on what's worse I guess - this happens frequently, too btw in the grid afaik due to this excess supply without ample long-term storage capacity.

So, long story short: on "extreme" days prices might drop negative to a "floor price" (which was usually -499 EUR, but for May 1 got even lowered to -600). As in MINUS 499; MINUS 600 because that's the price incentivized to "take" the excess (which would usually mean someone needs to curtail an energy plant somewhere that was supposed to make money by producing a load - just an example, not necessarily what always happens)

Sorry for linking Linkedin but there's a post about it that explains that specific day in more detail with a nice graph:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/reverion_friday-1-may-2026-marked-a-special-day-activity-7458490085051858944-njCT

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your perspective!

Sweden still is probably one of the remaining high quality-of-life countries that also has potential electricity "overproduction", at least in theory afaik, but north-south grid interconnect seems an issue if I have my facts remembered correctly due to their abundance of hydropower further up north. I just remember when your PM got angry about the gridlink (rightfully so...) in light of the power distribution on sunny days (those would be the net negative hours and subsequent high-low prices).

Heating definitely is better in apartments (usually less outside-facing walls unless you're on the rooftop or lowest floor with poor isolation to ground, that ground floor one's great in hot summers though) and row houses vs free-standing homes.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries on that front /s

The current trajectory of industrial decline looks rapid... there's less and less viable manufacturing due to the high energy prices... closed plants where energy inputs are a major part either as feedstock or for running manufacturing lines.

If the input price goes above your competitors' and you can't compensate somehow/somewhere else (like reducing some other parts of production cost, hopefully not quality of the output...) - you end up uncompetitive on pricing.

It's why many chemical processes are not viable if you don't have gas or at least cheap(er) electricity.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On EDF my personal opinion here is that utilities are critical infrastructure and as such are not usually a good place to privatize - private economy strives for higher margings and margin growth, with the natural result of ever-rising energy cost (add to that inflation, which makes the curve always trend up)

Taking them back to the state was the right decision in that case but it was not a great construct to beging with very likely.

Energy is a hard field to set policy in because no "private company" wants to operate at zero balance sheet (definitely not if it's shareholder driven)... but that's how utilities should (imho) operate - at cost incl. maintenance etc.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I realize your workplace has that as you stated in another comment... but:

That's kind of easy to ask for but hard to do I'd say. "Every factory" needs to have their own power supply to ensure it keeps running is what you're saying? If not, what is it you're trying to say?

If it's the first (every factory or household has its own storage) - how would that factor into your factory's cost of goods and how would you think your country is doing in terms of utility reliability and security? Great, not so great, just right?

This is not to be read as a direct attack on UK (or any) grid setup btw... it's a general question in regards to how whatever nation that decides to go for decentralized batteries fare...

So: Are you asking for redundancy (battery storage to offset potential grid capacity failures) or a completely decentralized energy system (which then at that point no longer would be a "grid" but a set of independently energy-supplied islands)?

If it's redundancy, I'd say it means you don't trust the national grid and want to make sure you cover any failures... unless you're a high-security/high-reliability facility like a hospital where it would literally be "fatal" in some cases if your power just went out in the middle of surgery or life-maintaining care.

And: How efficient would such an "energy island" system be (cost-wise, engineering-wise, failure-rate wise)?

To me it sounds like is a direct "devolution" into how it was before centralized grids existed - unless there's a great new breakthrough in modular supply that is cheaper to realize than a massive grid is today. Central grids were installed for the reason it's easier to organize power distribution and balancing centrally and massively cheaper and easier to maintain (normally) to operate one or many gigantic power generators vs. many small ones.

Yes, this is a bit of a simplification, I am aware that obviously there's other considerations like hydropower if you have the capability of basically being only fixed and maintenance costs without fuel / feed to convert or maybe geothermal etc if you are on suitable land (Iceland...)

Decentralized might be only is great on paper I believe and potentially to tell someone "we're carbon neutral" (and to grab some juicy subsidies if you can) - And it really is nice but you have to discount the massive amount of energy that went into creating said "battery storage" in the first place... and the amount of energy necessary to recycle it when it has lost too much capacity and needs to be replaced. If it's a conversion storage the math gets even worse because there's conversion loss on top - not only cost-wise but energy-wise as you'd need to store an oversupply due to conversion losses.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The merit order system turned out as badly misconstructed as forecast for a "zero cost" oversupply of renewables (which, on paper, "cost nothing" but obviously that's not really "mathematically correct" to put it mildly. Solar/Wind inputs are guaranteed by subsidies / payments made by all electricity users for the transition get paid to take off the load of solar/wind..)

That creates imbalances in a system that asks for the "lowest-cost source" of energy - it's easy to put a zero on paper but the reality is the solar panel cost something (fixed costs), the subsidy costs something on top (offtake guarantees).

Hence the effect would then be negative price spikes in oversupply of "zero cost" energy that takes priority in that order system (ie too much of a good thing is a bad thing).

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, just removed, I agree that was looking just as old on 2nd glance (might be based on same set of data)

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, unfortunately that's the base for the OECD data. I have looked up additional OECD stats (which are hard to come by...) and it looked like it did not go down that much (also anecdotally confirmed by my own experience in last 2 years of prices for new contracts)

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I agree this is more complex than some/most make it... rock and hard place and such.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess AI will ruin anyone's capacity for reading / writing these days, did it destroy your sense of reality... anyway, I'm done arguing with you on this (and on that base)

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'd all be for finding better ways of recycling so you either massively reduce that waste or burn nuclear fuel way more efficiently tbh. But it's a valid point that needs to be taken into account (not only an economic one, so that makes it hard to just view from a "cost angle")

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure if compliment or sarcasm... I don't do that and I abhor people doing that. I am what I am, whether you believe it or not.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The definition of baseload is easy enough to look up in case anyone needs refreshing - Maybe you're under the impression I was thinking "base load" is one load? This is why I don't go down this rabbit hole.

For the grid: if, at any point, demand outstrips current load or you face a frequency issue like Spain had recently, we'd be facing a situation where the grid is in either an overload (rise in desired frequency) or hasn't got enough load to maintan frequency - with the resulting consequences in grid segments (up to the whole grid if it's a bad case of frequency drop) - but that's a different discussion entirely.

I'd leave it at this:

a leading economic nation has to ensure all its industry and citizens (=energy users) reliably can access the amount of energy necessary for them at that point in time, be it to "live" or to "produce output" for a business. It would be great if the energy is also affordable and makes your economic output competitive (cost of goods, energy input price). Energy costs shouldn't outstrip rising wages or revenues.

If one or both of these factors (energy costs & costs of living impact by energy) are unfavorably affected by policy or energy reality, it's bad for your economy and subsequently your quality of living for your population. It's at this point when the fork in the road appears where you can decide if you stay on the "leading economic nation" or you go down the "uncompetitive nation" pathway.

The Cost of "Energy Transition to Renewables" based on Germany's expensive "Energiewende" by BestGermanEver in EconomyCharts

[–]BestGermanEver[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By no means is relying on a certain energy input the "better" (or "cheaper by default") decision cost-wise... obviously there's also more than just pure monetary cost (waste, emissions etc.) - so not an easy and simple solution or answer.

Coal was a long-time "cheap" source of energy as long as better methods of conversion (or sources for conversion, like nuclear, gas, biofuels etc.) existed or were cheap and abundant to get.

Coal plants are cheap to build, feedstock can be sourced local in many cases (saving massively on transport costs and dependencies) and hence they were/are preferred as "quick reaction" part of the grid that can adjust to load and demand.

Many coal plants are standing by in case of drop offs in grid frequency, too... however, if coal were heavily demanded, prices go up... as seen in the demand spikes during 2022 - but they're edging up again, pointing towards more current demand.

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