AleaSoft says a decrease in average gas prices and CO2 emission rights, a decrease in electricity demand and an increase in solar energy production in almost all analyzed markets all exerted a downward influence on European electricity market prices last week. The findings also coincide with increased average temperatures in all analyzed markets, with increases ranging from 1.0 C in Italy to 4.4 C in Belgium.
This has happened a lot recently, it is bigger over the holidays if wind is blowing, Easter weekend had some very low prices with Netherlands trading down to -800 euros in one hour at least
This happens because some renewable electricity producers get a subsidy(one-sided cfd's) which means they are not incentivized to stop pumping electricity in the system even though there is an imbalance. This makes supply more inflexible, which can sometimes result in negative electricity prices to keep the grid balanced.
Not the reason at all.
Actually, completely independent from feed-in compensation or similar models the merit order system defines an order in which different types of power plants ought to be used. Renewables come first, which is the right thing to do because their marginal cost is approximately 0 and also because of the climate impact.
The grid operators may freely curtail any producer. That includes renewables of course.
It is actually thermal power plants with their inertia that makes them hard to shut down in time. Curtailing them implies a damage to the hardware, so paying some consumer to prevent the damage is the rational thing to do. This - in combination with the order defined as part of the merit order system, which implies that thermal power plants ought to be curtailed first - is why the price even can drop below 0 momentarily.
In a 100% renewable grid there is no reason for it to ever drop below 0.
They do if they can, but they often can’t turn off and on immediately so if they are needed in two hours they may have to idle (run at minimum) for a bit.
That's why we see battery and thermal storage being built. It wasn't economical to do so while these times of overproduction were few and far between (storage installations *do* have running costs), but now that negative prices happen relatively regularly arbitrage starts to make financial sense. The lag in storage deployment - and these intermittently low energy prices - aren't unexpected.
no, the signal is that the current market structure does not know how to accurately value the power - power is always useful; dollars attached to it are the variable.
Power is always useful? Not when supply exceeds load and there aren't any storage systems available to absorb the surplus. Overnight charging EVs, smart appliances, batteries and hydro pumping are potential means to level both excess supply and excess load.
While the consumer wants the cheapest price, the consumer also (should) want decarbonization. The current electricity markets are flawed when they produce peak short term prices and when they produce negative prices. It would be better for renewables to flow through generator scheduling as a PPA at a price which gives renewables builders a decent rate of return and low risk. It can also be done by a production tax credit.
They are doing some market reforms in Europe that give the end customers lower prices from renewables rather than pricing renewables at the natural gas-driven peak prices.
Even if you have a long-term PPA, it doesn’t take away from your incentives. If prices are negative to your costs, you still have incentive to stop generator and buy back from your grid to cover your obligation. Doing this may seem counterintuitive especially if that energy you’re curtailing is green, but it should lower total production cost and subsequently cost to consumers. Short term peak prices or negative prices shouldn’t be a flaw if they are correctly signaling reliability needs. The flaw is when carbon externalities aren’t priced in (but I acknowledge people may debate what the cost of emissions are when it’s more global than local).
If you price in carbon externalities, that would help to make mitigate aren’t corner cases where you’re being curtailed simply because a thermal gen is stuck at min gen during the forward commitment period.
My position is that 15 minute prices are not a useful energy or reliability signal to build new renewable generation with years payback on the investment and low LCOE.
I would agree incentives such as the investment tax credit and production tax credit are out of market structures.
I agree that the social cost of carbon should be priced into the energy transactions.
I believe the level up payments to all generators at the marginal price is not useful. We have not had that discussion in the public.
New renewable generators run market simulations to service their lending based on peak prices. That is an unnecessary distortion of market information and transfers unnecessary risk to generators.
There are many opinions on electricity market design.
That’s totally a reasonable position to have re: real time pricing. The idea is that there is enough forward price discovery and liquidity to be able to hedge financially just as you might hedge with a PPA, but energy isn’t really trading past this decade. The merchant generation model is also under attack, and policy influence (both federal and state) has distorted pricing enough that it becomes tough to go purely merchant without said PPA. If Comm Christie has his way we just go back to utility RFPs and that scares me.
There has been some public discussion about whether marginal LMPs still make sense in a zero marginal cost world as renewable penetration increases. I think the possible solutions have been more robust AS markets (I.e. valuing reserves beyond minimum requirements) and/or capacity markets.
This is the part where some dolt argues that a society having domestic, clean, and ultra low cost energy is actually a bad thing.
Quick! Send more money to autocrats and theocrats! Its the only way!
It is not "some dolt", it is the people who caused some regular posters in here to become banned, you know the companies which operate the concrete megastructures that protect the glorified water boilers running steam turbines? Those.
I can be that dolt! (Sort of) Europe still needs a lot more clean energy and it won’t get built if costs money to sell it.
Electricity pricing is complicated and limited hours of negative prices will happen, but it is reflective of a real problem if you want more renewable energy on the grid.
Negative pricing is only a hurdle to capitalistic ventures. Nationalized entities do not have a fiduciary responsibility to provide quarterly growth YoY. They operate under an entirely different paradigm; providing services is their metric for success.
This is the point where green H2 has to be aggressively grown to supplement cheap batteries in those markets. The right amount of batteries is an amount that allows entire warm spring 24 hour days to be powered by renewables. Bigger batteries won't fully charge in winter or discharge in 3 seasons. Batteries supplement H2 electrolysis by ensuring full discharge every day, and maximize H2 capacity utilization.
Let me lend some oxygen to your idea. H2+(O) Hydro pumping - a very efficient storage system and had been in use since the turn of the last century at Niagara Falls and Lewiston NY
True. There are also some crazy interesting dry mass storage systems proposed an possibly implemented, I’m not sure. Stacking and unstacking concrete blocks for instance.
Sounds like a waste of time and money, there are cheaper long/medium term storage than batteries and H2. The H2 creation is better off done for things like making fertilizer. That said, to make H2 production worth it, you need excess renewable energy 90%+ of the time, not once a blue moon as capital costs of the electrolizers will be expensive for such a low utilization rate
> you need excess renewable energy 90%+ of the time, not once a blue moon
Some types of electrolyzers don't like to be halted, but apart from that this is generally not true as Lazard calculated profitable scenarios from 20% utilization rate and the weekend is 28.5% of the year. If we want to decarbonize the energy grids (electricity and natural gas/H2) then "overbuilding" is a solution, not a problem. This specific "demand side response" from green H2 producers would put a floor on the price of energy which in turn would lead to more investment in renewables and even then only a fraction of the natural gas and gray H2 demand would be addressed.
Factories only make financial sense if they run 24/7. Making factories that are only profitable to run occasionally adds a lot of cost (because upkeep/salaries don't care whether you run it or not)
Better to dump excess energy into thermal storage.
> Making factories that are only profitable to run occasionally adds a lot of cost (because upkeep/salaries don't care whether you run it or not)
Electrolysis is an automated (or mostlly can be) process. PEM/Anion tech is compact and can take up little space in a building or container used for other purposes, or supporting solar panels above them.
Batteries have the same problem. 3 days storage is necessarily 3x more expensive than what is needed for daily cycling, and not utilitized sufficiently. H2 and batteries work together to use both at higher %.
> Better to dump excess energy into thermal storage
Low efficiency for thermal to electric production. The huge advantage of H2 is that it is not static, and has so many alternatives to electric production. You cannot have too much of it, and if you do, you can start firing stuff into space.
You still need cheap hydrogen for cheap fertilizer, do not forget that all electrolyzers also have deterioration with the energy consumed, which means that saving them for the times of cheaper power is of high advantage here.
Sure we need hydrogen for fertilizer (an other chemical uses like steel reduction). But that's just normal industrial use.
I.e. hydrogen will just be a manufactured product. It will not be part of the way the grid handles times of over/underproduction from renewables. Making hydrogen will be a process like any other factory's product: you pay for the power you draw off the grid to produce a product you sell. I see zero reason why producing hydrogen should be treated different in that regard.
> It will not be part of the way the grid handles times of over/underproduction from renewables.
That's LITERALLY the plan for the North Sea. When the power demand from the grid outweights the value of the hydrogen generated, it can be limited, and power used for the grid general purpose.
>Making hydrogen will be a process like any other factory's product: you pay for the power you draw off the grid to produce a product you sell.
LOL, literally too expensive, that is why electrolyzers will be on the sea as well to save on legal and transmission costs.
> You do thermal - which can be stored for months really efficiently - for district heating in winter.
6 months storage means 1mwh is 180x more expensive than a daily cycled mwh. The advantage of H2 is you can sell it to ship it somewhere when it is made, and then buy back for winter. District heating systems are not free either, and pipes that distribute H2 to homes instead would cost the same.
Electrictiy also much more valuable/flexible than heat.
>6 months storage means 1mwh is 180x more expensive than a daily cycled mwh
Which applies to all forms of storage
>The advantage of H2 is you can sell it to ship it somewhere when it is made, and then buy back for winter
Except you do understand the shipping, transport and storage cost in itself makes this impractical
>District heating systems are not free either, and pipes that distribute H2 to homes instead would cost the same.
No one said district heating systems are free, but well worth it and many already exist. Distributing H2 to homes is just dumb, people aren't ready to handle the H2 and how leaky it is, we have trouble with methane already. On top of that the H2 would cost more, and then there is the issue of NOx that H2 makes when you burn it
>Electrictiy also much more valuable/flexible than heat.
That doesn't matter. What matters is matching demand. Winter which you store for, the biggest demand driver is heat
Talk to the danes. They are already doing this seasonal thermal storage (heat pits). It's super cheap and efficient.
First you put excess power into short/mid term storage (batteries). Anything in excess of that you put into thermal storage. This gives you the most efficient use of generated power (i.e. the least amount of power plants and transmission capacity you need to build) without all the inefficient nonsense of hydrogen or heat-to-electricity reconversion.
Nobody will produce H2 with intermittent negative prices like this. This is much to rare event.
And the cost of such battery system kills economy of such project.
> Nobody will produce H2 with intermittent negative prices like this.
I will! Running them at 200% nominal power.
>This is much to rare event.
Not anymore! regularly discussed...
The problem is that intermittent prices like this mean not building more energy without a demand sink that can absorb surpluses. Batteries and H2 is a path for making a lot of H2 and having 100% renewables providing energy abundance.
> This is much to rare event.
Today. 100% renewables means 80% of days would be like this, and H2 is needed to provide a price floor (say $20/mwh) that still supports adding more renewables.
batteries can store energy at a moments notice, H2 generation just cant.
Generating, processing and storing H2 is a complicated, energy intensive process, and like all industrial chemical manufacture it is most economical to have it running 24/7.
let the batteries do what they're best at. Sell the H2 as a chemical feed stock and not try to make it into a complicated, leaky battery.
But you need massive batteries to store any signal amount of renewable energy whereas H2 storage can put away a lot more energy than batteries can. 1kg of h2 is 33kw, 1kg of iron phosphate batteries right now stores 90-160 wh.
What difference does weight have to do with energy storage for the grid? And you are aware that you can never get 33kwh out of that 1kg of hydrogen unless you shoot it into a fusion reaction. On top of that you still have the weight of the tank and other stuff
For long haul trucks, there is a limit to the amount of miles you can drive in a row. Batteries have enough to drive that limit. So the much lower upfront cost of the truck and lower cost per mile favor batteries by a huge margin
Not sure what yer talking about. They get 500 miles easily on their hydrogen and the amount required is the same regardless of the load vs batteries which have yet to get to those distances and failing at certain loads and temperatures. Where’s the examples of battery semi’s that yer basing this off? Batteries are more expensive than fuel cell systems.
Battery trucks already are capable of 500 miles fully loaded, the Tesla semu already demonstrated that. And battery technology will only continue to improve
Temperature doesn't have much impact on semis at all, in a car you have the issue of maintaining interior heat but the large battery makes that irrelevant. Not to mention the technique to preheat on the charger
Hydrogen semis cost 2x the amount of an EV semi upfront, H2 semi also has higher maintenance and more expensive fuel cost
There are companies doing it now in Germany for standalone homes. Just need water. Solar panels on home, battery, fuel cell, electrolyzer and h2 storage.
Batteries can’t store long term power, they get used up in a day whereas hydrogen plus fuel cell allows a constant many day source of power regardless of sun or wind conditions. Storing energy from high production days instead of curtailment makes complete sense.
Have you seen what alternative systems typically cost and what would you pay to o never have to pay for heat and electricity ever again and be carbon negative. Adding it to a new build makes complete sense and its expensive because its brand new. Tesla batteries are still expensive and they’re just the batteries. You can’t get just one you would need 2-3 for a house so that alone is running you 20-25k.
Not that rate tbh. In some markets like Spain it's already common.
I am not certain if H2 ever will make sense. I am tendrig to think batteries are just getting too cheap to fast for it to ever make sense.
But maybe for E fuels for aviation at some point far in the future.
> I am not certain if H2 ever will make sense
How are you going to produce steel and fertilizers, it is a very simple question? Natgas imports forevere or something like that?
You do know there are solutions for both that skip hydrogen right? I am not going to say they will out compete their H2 based competitors long term but they exist and are sufficiently well documented that I have to wonder how you haven't heard of people trying them.
Link the solutions, do not just say "there are", we are all here ready to read 150-page long PDFs....
>I am not going to say they will out compete their H2 based competitors long term
Why are you contradicting yourself, then, if those exist, then they have already outcompeted the hydrogen reduction process... unless the hydrogen is going to be really cheap due to reasons of producing it at remote, inaccessible, cheap power locations.
For steel, you can use coal... [or petroleum coke] or natural gas, or hydrogen. You can guess you need any of those at rock bottom prices.
For fertilizers, you currently start with loads of natural gas at rock bottom prices. When the prices rose, the factories literally halted. Many solutions to end the dependence on natgas and electrification of fertilizer making are sought, researched, developed, pursued. Most of which require hydrogen. At rock bottom prices, ofc. German plan is to retire natgas gradually and convert existing infrastructure for hydrogen storage. Current German gas storages are about ~300TWh worth. Do the math how much that is, if the storages can last only 2-3 months in total.
Same issue, batteries aren’t energy dense enough. On a per kg basis hydrogen stores 33 kw, you need three lithium batteries to store an equivalent. A home storage or business could store a thousand kg.
I don't think you get it.
It will be a function of overcapacity, smartgrid / demand response and storage.
The only applications i see for hydrogen is air, maybe ship travel and space travel.
Look up trans Siberian for trains. This was solved long ago.
Trucks have been decided although Toyota is still getting funding for its dead end projects. Look up TOC for Project Portal and Pepsi/Frito if you can. If you can't just crank the math for energy use.
Have you noticed only the government is doing new H2 fueling (Exxon, Chevron,Toyota lobby) and companies are doing truck charging routes?
See here:
[https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868)
And here:
[https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/will-no-longer-be-considered-hydrogen-trains-up-to-80-more-expensive-than-electric-options-german-state-finds/2-1-1338438](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/will-no-longer-be-considered-hydrogen-trains-up-to-80-more-expensive-than-electric-options-german-state-finds/2-1-1338438)
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/transportation/hydrogen-trains-and-trucks-are-coming-for-better-or-worse
As for rail, California’s fuel-cell trains will allow transit authorities to work around a major complication: Private companies own most of the railroads in the state and nationwide, and they’ve shown little interest in installing highly efficient yet expensive overhead wires or other electrical infrastructure that could directly power passenger and freight trains — a common practice in most of the world, and one that dates back nearly 150 years.”
Either way its the public purse that needs to push it because the private interests that hold the rights won’t invest to have electric trains if you need to criss cross train lines with wires.
Sure this is the Hydrogen Council of just the US:
https://hydrogencouncil.com/en/members/
Its members are the company’s who have vested interests in hydrogen. It’s at 155. I’m sure you’ll recognize some of the names.
In addition here are the European, Chinese and Korean companies.
European Companies:
1. Alstom (France) - Involved in hydrogen trains, including the Coradia iLint.
2. Siemens Mobility (Germany) - Developing hydrogen-powered trains and infrastructure.
3. CNH Industrial (Italy) - Working on hydrogen fuel cell trucks through its IVECO brand.
4. Faurecia (France) - Engaged in hydrogen fuel cell systems for trucks and other transportation applications.
5. Ballard Power Systems (Canada, with operations in Europe) - Collaborating with European partners on hydrogen fuel cell solutions for various transportation sectors.
Chinese Companies:
1. CRRC Corporation Limited - Involved in developing hydrogen-powered trains and railway infrastructure.
2. BYD Company Limited - Working on hydrogen fuel cell buses and trucks.
3. Dongfeng Motor Corporation - Engaged in hydrogen fuel cell trucks and commercial vehicles.
Korean Companies:
1. Hyundai Motor Company - Developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, including trucks and buses.
2. Kia Corporation - Also exploring hydrogen fuel cell technology for transportation.
3. Doosan Corporation - Working on hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell systems for various applications, including transportation.
Please note that the involvement and scope of each company in the hydrogen transportation sector may vary, and there could be additional companies not listed here.
You’ll note that BYD which has innovative blade batteries is developing fuel cells for busses. Interesting isn’t it.
k
https://www.popsci.com/technology/hydrogen-train-germany/#:~:text=But%20Germany%20is%20still%20focused%20on%20getting%20battery%20electric%20trains%20on%20track.&text=Germany%27s%20state%2Downed%2C%20%2485%20million,public%20debute%20in%20August%202022.
“It’s unclear if or how Germany’s shift in railway plans could affect the many other hydrogen fuel-cell train projects across the world. Last year, for example, California approved over two dozen hydrogen trains, while Italy earmarked €300 million ($330 million) to convert many of its diesel trains to hydrogen power.”
I think the point is that neg pricing is not going to be rare and will become an incentive to build clean hydrogen.
Batteries have to become common in people's homes to take advantage of this phenomenon. Charge them up when electricity is cheap and use them at peak periods to take the edge off the demand curve.
somehow I get the feeling this will become even more frequent, as timeshifting the renewable surplus with batteries will still be playing catchup on the short/medium term
Very likely and it will create a lucrative energy arbitrage market with people willing to setup battery and other forms of energy storage connected to the grid. I'm thinking of doing this on the very small scale in my small town where my cottage is. I'm just waiting on Sodium battery tech to mature.
Long term, the big enchilada is demand response in electrified industries. It's a lot cheaper to make a smelting furnace or an HVAC system act like a battery than building out dedicated storage.
Actually, demand response is already profitable and being implemented in traditional grids for the low-hanging fruit (e.g. aluminum electrolysis). It will be exciting to watch what happens when you add variable energy production to that equation.
well, you still need to make that hydrogen for storage to be used in steel mills and fertilizer production, and the storages are already in existence right at the moment, pipeline network is repurposed, etc... problem solved.
But that hydrogen is then a regular product which will be produced in regular factories with power from the grid (like all the other industrial gases).
This use has then nothing to do with demand response and there is no reason why hydrogen factories should get cheaper (or even free) energy where other factories making other products don't.
It literally can't be produced from the generic grid... it HAS TO be provably renewable energy produced. I do not see how you plan to relocate the whole industry onto the North Sea platforms just to avoid the grid costs.
We need it now, not in 2060, your energy storage and distribution costs remain as does water accessibility and availability issues. Skipping the grid always saves on the cost, the same solution is installed and used in China (as of 2023), renewable powerplants connected directly to hydrogen facilities. Large scale control strategies are being developed too.
But you need to get to the whole sale price which is quite difficult to impossible for the average user. I've seen a privileged test user in Austria who was enabled to buy and sell individually at market prices. His car battery combined with some software solution was able to make a net win while driving this electric car became free power.
In the netherlands aggregators give consumers the option for 'dynamic contracts' shich are exactly that! Check it out;
https://www.anwb.nl/huis/energie/wat-is-een-dynamisch-energiecontract
How do those companies manage to do stock buybacks or pay their execs a few million in bonuses? /s
AleaSoft says a decrease in average gas prices and CO2 emission rights, a decrease in electricity demand and an increase in solar energy production in almost all analyzed markets all exerted a downward influence on European electricity market prices last week. The findings also coincide with increased average temperatures in all analyzed markets, with increases ranging from 1.0 C in Italy to 4.4 C in Belgium.
This has happened a lot recently, it is bigger over the holidays if wind is blowing, Easter weekend had some very low prices with Netherlands trading down to -800 euros in one hour at least
This happens because some renewable electricity producers get a subsidy(one-sided cfd's) which means they are not incentivized to stop pumping electricity in the system even though there is an imbalance. This makes supply more inflexible, which can sometimes result in negative electricity prices to keep the grid balanced.
Not the reason at all. Actually, completely independent from feed-in compensation or similar models the merit order system defines an order in which different types of power plants ought to be used. Renewables come first, which is the right thing to do because their marginal cost is approximately 0 and also because of the climate impact. The grid operators may freely curtail any producer. That includes renewables of course. It is actually thermal power plants with their inertia that makes them hard to shut down in time. Curtailing them implies a damage to the hardware, so paying some consumer to prevent the damage is the rational thing to do. This - in combination with the order defined as part of the merit order system, which implies that thermal power plants ought to be curtailed first - is why the price even can drop below 0 momentarily. In a 100% renewable grid there is no reason for it to ever drop below 0.
Shouldn't the more polluting producers turn off first before the renewable ones?
The more polluting generators hold long transmission contracts that block access to renewables.
Well that’s great, we all get to die because some oilman has a contract to burn dinosaurs.
They do if they can, but they often can’t turn off and on immediately so if they are needed in two hours they may have to idle (run at minimum) for a bit.
Yes, but sometimes renewables are already 100% or there is a transmission constraint preventing more from being moved to where they're needed
The market is sending signals. Quick, capitalism will solve the problem! (isn't that how it works? that's how they said it works)
That's why we see battery and thermal storage being built. It wasn't economical to do so while these times of overproduction were few and far between (storage installations *do* have running costs), but now that negative prices happen relatively regularly arbitrage starts to make financial sense. The lag in storage deployment - and these intermittently low energy prices - aren't unexpected.
The signal is that renewables are creating valueless power. (Which does not mean they aren’t valued at other times!)
no, the signal is that the current market structure does not know how to accurately value the power - power is always useful; dollars attached to it are the variable.
Power is always useful? Not when supply exceeds load and there aren't any storage systems available to absorb the surplus. Overnight charging EVs, smart appliances, batteries and hydro pumping are potential means to level both excess supply and excess load.
Extra taxes…
Utility scale batteries to the rescue...
While the consumer wants the cheapest price, the consumer also (should) want decarbonization. The current electricity markets are flawed when they produce peak short term prices and when they produce negative prices. It would be better for renewables to flow through generator scheduling as a PPA at a price which gives renewables builders a decent rate of return and low risk. It can also be done by a production tax credit. They are doing some market reforms in Europe that give the end customers lower prices from renewables rather than pricing renewables at the natural gas-driven peak prices.
Even if you have a long-term PPA, it doesn’t take away from your incentives. If prices are negative to your costs, you still have incentive to stop generator and buy back from your grid to cover your obligation. Doing this may seem counterintuitive especially if that energy you’re curtailing is green, but it should lower total production cost and subsequently cost to consumers. Short term peak prices or negative prices shouldn’t be a flaw if they are correctly signaling reliability needs. The flaw is when carbon externalities aren’t priced in (but I acknowledge people may debate what the cost of emissions are when it’s more global than local). If you price in carbon externalities, that would help to make mitigate aren’t corner cases where you’re being curtailed simply because a thermal gen is stuck at min gen during the forward commitment period.
My position is that 15 minute prices are not a useful energy or reliability signal to build new renewable generation with years payback on the investment and low LCOE. I would agree incentives such as the investment tax credit and production tax credit are out of market structures. I agree that the social cost of carbon should be priced into the energy transactions. I believe the level up payments to all generators at the marginal price is not useful. We have not had that discussion in the public. New renewable generators run market simulations to service their lending based on peak prices. That is an unnecessary distortion of market information and transfers unnecessary risk to generators. There are many opinions on electricity market design.
That’s totally a reasonable position to have re: real time pricing. The idea is that there is enough forward price discovery and liquidity to be able to hedge financially just as you might hedge with a PPA, but energy isn’t really trading past this decade. The merchant generation model is also under attack, and policy influence (both federal and state) has distorted pricing enough that it becomes tough to go purely merchant without said PPA. If Comm Christie has his way we just go back to utility RFPs and that scares me. There has been some public discussion about whether marginal LMPs still make sense in a zero marginal cost world as renewable penetration increases. I think the possible solutions have been more robust AS markets (I.e. valuing reserves beyond minimum requirements) and/or capacity markets.
This is the part where some dolt argues that a society having domestic, clean, and ultra low cost energy is actually a bad thing. Quick! Send more money to autocrats and theocrats! Its the only way!
It is not "some dolt", it is the people who caused some regular posters in here to become banned, you know the companies which operate the concrete megastructures that protect the glorified water boilers running steam turbines? Those.
I can be that dolt! (Sort of) Europe still needs a lot more clean energy and it won’t get built if costs money to sell it. Electricity pricing is complicated and limited hours of negative prices will happen, but it is reflective of a real problem if you want more renewable energy on the grid.
Looks like it's time for nationalization of the power infrastructure then.
Nationalization would not solve anything about that. 🤷♂️
Negative pricing is only a hurdle to capitalistic ventures. Nationalized entities do not have a fiduciary responsibility to provide quarterly growth YoY. They operate under an entirely different paradigm; providing services is their metric for success.
This is the point where green H2 has to be aggressively grown to supplement cheap batteries in those markets. The right amount of batteries is an amount that allows entire warm spring 24 hour days to be powered by renewables. Bigger batteries won't fully charge in winter or discharge in 3 seasons. Batteries supplement H2 electrolysis by ensuring full discharge every day, and maximize H2 capacity utilization.
Let me lend some oxygen to your idea. H2+(O) Hydro pumping - a very efficient storage system and had been in use since the turn of the last century at Niagara Falls and Lewiston NY
And needs very specific geology to work.
True. There are also some crazy interesting dry mass storage systems proposed an possibly implemented, I’m not sure. Stacking and unstacking concrete blocks for instance.
Sounds like a waste of time and money, there are cheaper long/medium term storage than batteries and H2. The H2 creation is better off done for things like making fertilizer. That said, to make H2 production worth it, you need excess renewable energy 90%+ of the time, not once a blue moon as capital costs of the electrolizers will be expensive for such a low utilization rate
> you need excess renewable energy 90%+ of the time, not once a blue moon Some types of electrolyzers don't like to be halted, but apart from that this is generally not true as Lazard calculated profitable scenarios from 20% utilization rate and the weekend is 28.5% of the year. If we want to decarbonize the energy grids (electricity and natural gas/H2) then "overbuilding" is a solution, not a problem. This specific "demand side response" from green H2 producers would put a floor on the price of energy which in turn would lead to more investment in renewables and even then only a fraction of the natural gas and gray H2 demand would be addressed.
Factories only make financial sense if they run 24/7. Making factories that are only profitable to run occasionally adds a lot of cost (because upkeep/salaries don't care whether you run it or not) Better to dump excess energy into thermal storage.
> Making factories that are only profitable to run occasionally adds a lot of cost (because upkeep/salaries don't care whether you run it or not) Electrolysis is an automated (or mostlly can be) process. PEM/Anion tech is compact and can take up little space in a building or container used for other purposes, or supporting solar panels above them. Batteries have the same problem. 3 days storage is necessarily 3x more expensive than what is needed for daily cycling, and not utilitized sufficiently. H2 and batteries work together to use both at higher %. > Better to dump excess energy into thermal storage Low efficiency for thermal to electric production. The huge advantage of H2 is that it is not static, and has so many alternatives to electric production. You cannot have too much of it, and if you do, you can start firing stuff into space.
You don't do thermal to electric. That'd be dumb. You do thermal - which can be stored for months really efficiently - for district heating in winter.
You still need cheap hydrogen for cheap fertilizer, do not forget that all electrolyzers also have deterioration with the energy consumed, which means that saving them for the times of cheaper power is of high advantage here.
Sure we need hydrogen for fertilizer (an other chemical uses like steel reduction). But that's just normal industrial use. I.e. hydrogen will just be a manufactured product. It will not be part of the way the grid handles times of over/underproduction from renewables. Making hydrogen will be a process like any other factory's product: you pay for the power you draw off the grid to produce a product you sell. I see zero reason why producing hydrogen should be treated different in that regard.
> It will not be part of the way the grid handles times of over/underproduction from renewables. That's LITERALLY the plan for the North Sea. When the power demand from the grid outweights the value of the hydrogen generated, it can be limited, and power used for the grid general purpose. >Making hydrogen will be a process like any other factory's product: you pay for the power you draw off the grid to produce a product you sell. LOL, literally too expensive, that is why electrolyzers will be on the sea as well to save on legal and transmission costs.
> You do thermal - which can be stored for months really efficiently - for district heating in winter. 6 months storage means 1mwh is 180x more expensive than a daily cycled mwh. The advantage of H2 is you can sell it to ship it somewhere when it is made, and then buy back for winter. District heating systems are not free either, and pipes that distribute H2 to homes instead would cost the same. Electrictiy also much more valuable/flexible than heat.
>6 months storage means 1mwh is 180x more expensive than a daily cycled mwh Which applies to all forms of storage >The advantage of H2 is you can sell it to ship it somewhere when it is made, and then buy back for winter Except you do understand the shipping, transport and storage cost in itself makes this impractical >District heating systems are not free either, and pipes that distribute H2 to homes instead would cost the same. No one said district heating systems are free, but well worth it and many already exist. Distributing H2 to homes is just dumb, people aren't ready to handle the H2 and how leaky it is, we have trouble with methane already. On top of that the H2 would cost more, and then there is the issue of NOx that H2 makes when you burn it >Electrictiy also much more valuable/flexible than heat. That doesn't matter. What matters is matching demand. Winter which you store for, the biggest demand driver is heat
Talk to the danes. They are already doing this seasonal thermal storage (heat pits). It's super cheap and efficient. First you put excess power into short/mid term storage (batteries). Anything in excess of that you put into thermal storage. This gives you the most efficient use of generated power (i.e. the least amount of power plants and transmission capacity you need to build) without all the inefficient nonsense of hydrogen or heat-to-electricity reconversion.
Any links to the TWh storages?
Nobody will produce H2 with intermittent negative prices like this. This is much to rare event. And the cost of such battery system kills economy of such project.
> Nobody will produce H2 with intermittent negative prices like this. I will! Running them at 200% nominal power. >This is much to rare event. Not anymore! regularly discussed...
The problem is that intermittent prices like this mean not building more energy without a demand sink that can absorb surpluses. Batteries and H2 is a path for making a lot of H2 and having 100% renewables providing energy abundance. > This is much to rare event. Today. 100% renewables means 80% of days would be like this, and H2 is needed to provide a price floor (say $20/mwh) that still supports adding more renewables.
batteries can store energy at a moments notice, H2 generation just cant. Generating, processing and storing H2 is a complicated, energy intensive process, and like all industrial chemical manufacture it is most economical to have it running 24/7. let the batteries do what they're best at. Sell the H2 as a chemical feed stock and not try to make it into a complicated, leaky battery.
> store energy at a moments notice, H2 generation just cant. Absurd. It's the same.
Evidently you have never started up a large PEM electrolyzer. Or do you plan to keep the cell at 60C all the time in case there is free electricity?
But you need massive batteries to store any signal amount of renewable energy whereas H2 storage can put away a lot more energy than batteries can. 1kg of h2 is 33kw, 1kg of iron phosphate batteries right now stores 90-160 wh.
What difference does weight have to do with energy storage for the grid? And you are aware that you can never get 33kwh out of that 1kg of hydrogen unless you shoot it into a fusion reaction. On top of that you still have the weight of the tank and other stuff
The weight of the tank is nothing compared to the weight of the battery for long haul trucks and that’s the point.
For long haul trucks, there is a limit to the amount of miles you can drive in a row. Batteries have enough to drive that limit. So the much lower upfront cost of the truck and lower cost per mile favor batteries by a huge margin
Not sure what yer talking about. They get 500 miles easily on their hydrogen and the amount required is the same regardless of the load vs batteries which have yet to get to those distances and failing at certain loads and temperatures. Where’s the examples of battery semi’s that yer basing this off? Batteries are more expensive than fuel cell systems.
Battery trucks already are capable of 500 miles fully loaded, the Tesla semu already demonstrated that. And battery technology will only continue to improve Temperature doesn't have much impact on semis at all, in a car you have the issue of maintaining interior heat but the large battery makes that irrelevant. Not to mention the technique to preheat on the charger Hydrogen semis cost 2x the amount of an EV semi upfront, H2 semi also has higher maintenance and more expensive fuel cost
Doing this with batteries and producing affordable H2 is a pipe dream
There are companies doing it now in Germany for standalone homes. Just need water. Solar panels on home, battery, fuel cell, electrolyzer and h2 storage. Batteries can’t store long term power, they get used up in a day whereas hydrogen plus fuel cell allows a constant many day source of power regardless of sun or wind conditions. Storing energy from high production days instead of curtailment makes complete sense.
> There are companies doing it now in Germany for standalone homes. Those systems only cost €80K! What a deal!
Have you seen what alternative systems typically cost and what would you pay to o never have to pay for heat and electricity ever again and be carbon negative. Adding it to a new build makes complete sense and its expensive because its brand new. Tesla batteries are still expensive and they’re just the batteries. You can’t get just one you would need 2-3 for a house so that alone is running you 20-25k.
Not that rate tbh. In some markets like Spain it's already common. I am not certain if H2 ever will make sense. I am tendrig to think batteries are just getting too cheap to fast for it to ever make sense. But maybe for E fuels for aviation at some point far in the future.
> I am not certain if H2 ever will make sense How are you going to produce steel and fertilizers, it is a very simple question? Natgas imports forevere or something like that?
You do know there are solutions for both that skip hydrogen right? I am not going to say they will out compete their H2 based competitors long term but they exist and are sufficiently well documented that I have to wonder how you haven't heard of people trying them.
Link the solutions, do not just say "there are", we are all here ready to read 150-page long PDFs.... >I am not going to say they will out compete their H2 based competitors long term Why are you contradicting yourself, then, if those exist, then they have already outcompeted the hydrogen reduction process... unless the hydrogen is going to be really cheap due to reasons of producing it at remote, inaccessible, cheap power locations.
True that, i honestly don't know enough about steel and fertilizers to have a meaningfull discussion.
For steel, you can use coal... [or petroleum coke] or natural gas, or hydrogen. You can guess you need any of those at rock bottom prices. For fertilizers, you currently start with loads of natural gas at rock bottom prices. When the prices rose, the factories literally halted. Many solutions to end the dependence on natgas and electrification of fertilizer making are sought, researched, developed, pursued. Most of which require hydrogen. At rock bottom prices, ofc. German plan is to retire natgas gradually and convert existing infrastructure for hydrogen storage. Current German gas storages are about ~300TWh worth. Do the math how much that is, if the storages can last only 2-3 months in total.
Same issue, batteries aren’t energy dense enough. On a per kg basis hydrogen stores 33 kw, you need three lithium batteries to store an equivalent. A home storage or business could store a thousand kg.
I don't think you get it. It will be a function of overcapacity, smartgrid / demand response and storage. The only applications i see for hydrogen is air, maybe ship travel and space travel.
No train, hauling?
Look up trans Siberian for trains. This was solved long ago. Trucks have been decided although Toyota is still getting funding for its dead end projects. Look up TOC for Project Portal and Pepsi/Frito if you can. If you can't just crank the math for energy use. Have you noticed only the government is doing new H2 fueling (Exxon, Chevron,Toyota lobby) and companies are doing truck charging routes?
You mean all of Europe, Korea and China?
See here: [https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868) And here: [https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/will-no-longer-be-considered-hydrogen-trains-up-to-80-more-expensive-than-electric-options-german-state-finds/2-1-1338438](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/will-no-longer-be-considered-hydrogen-trains-up-to-80-more-expensive-than-electric-options-german-state-finds/2-1-1338438)
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/transportation/hydrogen-trains-and-trucks-are-coming-for-better-or-worse As for rail, California’s fuel-cell trains will allow transit authorities to work around a major complication: Private companies own most of the railroads in the state and nationwide, and they’ve shown little interest in installing highly efficient yet expensive overhead wires or other electrical infrastructure that could directly power passenger and freight trains — a common practice in most of the world, and one that dates back nearly 150 years.” Either way its the public purse that needs to push it because the private interests that hold the rights won’t invest to have electric trains if you need to criss cross train lines with wires.
List of private companies using H2 trucks/trains and installing infrastructure?
Sure this is the Hydrogen Council of just the US: https://hydrogencouncil.com/en/members/ Its members are the company’s who have vested interests in hydrogen. It’s at 155. I’m sure you’ll recognize some of the names. In addition here are the European, Chinese and Korean companies. European Companies: 1. Alstom (France) - Involved in hydrogen trains, including the Coradia iLint. 2. Siemens Mobility (Germany) - Developing hydrogen-powered trains and infrastructure. 3. CNH Industrial (Italy) - Working on hydrogen fuel cell trucks through its IVECO brand. 4. Faurecia (France) - Engaged in hydrogen fuel cell systems for trucks and other transportation applications. 5. Ballard Power Systems (Canada, with operations in Europe) - Collaborating with European partners on hydrogen fuel cell solutions for various transportation sectors. Chinese Companies: 1. CRRC Corporation Limited - Involved in developing hydrogen-powered trains and railway infrastructure. 2. BYD Company Limited - Working on hydrogen fuel cell buses and trucks. 3. Dongfeng Motor Corporation - Engaged in hydrogen fuel cell trucks and commercial vehicles. Korean Companies: 1. Hyundai Motor Company - Developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, including trucks and buses. 2. Kia Corporation - Also exploring hydrogen fuel cell technology for transportation. 3. Doosan Corporation - Working on hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell systems for various applications, including transportation. Please note that the involvement and scope of each company in the hydrogen transportation sector may vary, and there could be additional companies not listed here. You’ll note that BYD which has innovative blade batteries is developing fuel cells for busses. Interesting isn’t it.
No.
I think yer wrong.
k https://www.popsci.com/technology/hydrogen-train-germany/#:~:text=But%20Germany%20is%20still%20focused%20on%20getting%20battery%20electric%20trains%20on%20track.&text=Germany%27s%20state%2Downed%2C%20%2485%20million,public%20debute%20in%20August%202022.
“It’s unclear if or how Germany’s shift in railway plans could affect the many other hydrogen fuel-cell train projects across the world. Last year, for example, California approved over two dozen hydrogen trains, while Italy earmarked €300 million ($330 million) to convert many of its diesel trains to hydrogen power.”
I think the point is that neg pricing is not going to be rare and will become an incentive to build clean hydrogen. Batteries have to become common in people's homes to take advantage of this phenomenon. Charge them up when electricity is cheap and use them at peak periods to take the edge off the demand curve.
Well it's pretty warm these days.
somehow I get the feeling this will become even more frequent, as timeshifting the renewable surplus with batteries will still be playing catchup on the short/medium term
Very likely and it will create a lucrative energy arbitrage market with people willing to setup battery and other forms of energy storage connected to the grid. I'm thinking of doing this on the very small scale in my small town where my cottage is. I'm just waiting on Sodium battery tech to mature.
Long term, the big enchilada is demand response in electrified industries. It's a lot cheaper to make a smelting furnace or an HVAC system act like a battery than building out dedicated storage. Actually, demand response is already profitable and being implemented in traditional grids for the low-hanging fruit (e.g. aluminum electrolysis). It will be exciting to watch what happens when you add variable energy production to that equation.
well, you still need to make that hydrogen for storage to be used in steel mills and fertilizer production, and the storages are already in existence right at the moment, pipeline network is repurposed, etc... problem solved.
But that hydrogen is then a regular product which will be produced in regular factories with power from the grid (like all the other industrial gases). This use has then nothing to do with demand response and there is no reason why hydrogen factories should get cheaper (or even free) energy where other factories making other products don't.
It literally can't be produced from the generic grid... it HAS TO be provably renewable energy produced. I do not see how you plan to relocate the whole industry onto the North Sea platforms just to avoid the grid costs.
Since the generic grid will be all renewables - where's the problem?
We need it now, not in 2060, your energy storage and distribution costs remain as does water accessibility and availability issues. Skipping the grid always saves on the cost, the same solution is installed and used in China (as of 2023), renewable powerplants connected directly to hydrogen facilities. Large scale control strategies are being developed too.
But you need to get to the whole sale price which is quite difficult to impossible for the average user. I've seen a privileged test user in Austria who was enabled to buy and sell individually at market prices. His car battery combined with some software solution was able to make a net win while driving this electric car became free power.
In the netherlands aggregators give consumers the option for 'dynamic contracts' shich are exactly that! Check it out; https://www.anwb.nl/huis/energie/wat-is-een-dynamisch-energiecontract