German power prices have surged to their highest level in nearly two decades, as the “dunkelflaute” weather phenomenon leaves wind farms idle across Europe.
Prices for power in the window of 5pm to 6pm on the country’s day ahead market leapt to more than €900 per megawatt hour on Wednesday, according to data published by Epex Spot. That was the highest level recorded in 18 years.
So, so, cheap.
Octopus Energy are warning that their Agile tariff will hit its cap of £1.00 per kWh at peak time today because of the (lack of) weather. Late dinner for everyone.
Have the Germans thought of restarting their nukes??
Ok. I’m joking!!!
I suppose high power prices must be a blow to Weird Ed Miliband, he of three kitchens fame.
Heard here in the Dutch House of Commons ( some detail waffling about the planned Nukes..):
“Renewable energy is already sufficient to satify 60% of the power demand of the Netherlands, and projected to cover well over 100% by 2030.”
( That’s Timmermans + tame dogs..)
replies :
“yeess… But does that renewable energy materialise when we actually need it? Experience so far is that it either breaks the Grid, or isn’t there.”
“I see in the provided figures that the 100%+ is *total* average coverage. Can the representative give a reasonable figure on the estimated nominal day-to-day coverage?”
“These numbers require roughly 20% more land area to be exclusively utilised for energy generation, even considering mixed-purpose applications ( bird choppers in meadows and in water for us Oiks).
How is the representative going to realise such an area without resorting to expropriation, as the current voluntary supply of potential real estate to commercial partners is already well below projected figures.”
Seems peeps *do* ask the right Questions here in Parliament… Even if it’s in Formal-Nob.
And let’s be real… Anyone who has ever played Sim City™ knows by rote that Windmills are the way to go Broke. You either deal with the pollution, or risk the Nukes if you want your City to work.
Sim City, in all its incarnations, did not-at-all-honest-guv’ner promote the Green Bright Future..
And even with the skewed algorithms favouring Green Stuff you just could not make Cities work on Windmills/Solar, unless you went Sandbox/cheat mode…
Real Life™ is a lot more complicated than that. So…. If a game can’t hack it without Cheating… What on earth makes people think it will ever work in reality?
At its peak today wind and solar failed to reach 5% of demand. Just the other day Starmer was promissing 95% green electricity by 2030. This is not a problem to him as he is looking less and less likely to still be in power by then so he will be able to blame someone else.
As far as any UK politician is concerned, 2030 might as well be 2300 for all the difference it would make. It’s beyond the next election, so in their minds it doesn’t exist.
The German greens and left have a cunning plan to help out consumers and businesses with high energy plans, their going to use their taxes to subsidise the price.
If only they’d kept their nukes:
“Sweden Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Ebba Busch stated today that “she’s furious with Germany” for dismantling its nuclear power plants, causing a spike in energy prices in Sweden”
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1867190438941061429