Came across this rather confusing tweet posted a week ago by a Dutch lecturer in energy transition (translated from Dutch):
Things are not going well with negative prices yet; 13 hours so far.
But next night there will be two hours with virtually “free” electricity (ex tax): price <1 €/MWh.
In total, the Netherlands now has 31 such hours. In 2023, the Netherlands recorded 23 so far; In 2022 there were 9.
#graphoftheday
He is apparently counting the number of hours with negative prices on the Dutch grid and counted 31 hours in 2024.
The graph below the tweet shows the evolution of the number of hours lower than €1/MWh from 2019 until now. It also detailed what type of price he is talking about (day-ahead prices) and that the number of hours with low (day-ahead) prices increases each year (2020 was an exception from about April on, for obvious reasons).
I was a bit confused by the fascination for those day-ahead prices. There were also cheering responses that wanted more of these negative prices. Okay, who doesn’t want (virtually) “free” electricity, but then, day-ahead prices aren’t what comes to mind when someone talks about “free” electricity (even excluding taxes).
This tweet is not a one-off, there were several other similar tweets. Here is one of almost three weeks earlier (translated from Dutch):
Things aren’t going smoothly yet with my collection of “negative electricity prices” this year. As of February 13, the counter only stands at 13 pieces. Last year that was also only 9 pieces.
I’m counting on 500 hours this year. Feasible?
His assumption is that it will amount to about 500 hours in 2024, meaning somewhat higher than in 2023. I think that number is certainly feasible.
Another tweet from almost two weeks earlier is about an expected zero price (translated from Dutch):
Negative electricity prices are not going well this time of year. However, tomorrow morning between 4 and 7 a.m. the day-ahead electricity price will be exactly ZERO*. The rest of the day also includes “pre-crisis” prices.
*that is not due to the Dutch solar panels!
The accompanying graph indeed showed that prices were exactly zero between 4 and 7 a.m.:
He is absolutely right about solar power not being responsible for those low prices. The sun doesn’t rise that early on a winter morning at this latitude. What then could cause this zero price during those three morning hours?
I have no data from the Netherlands, but I do have data from it neighboring country Belgium. February 3 was a windy day with a high production of wind energy and this was likely also the case in the Netherlands. In addition to that, February 3 was a weekend day (Saturday) and the weather was rather soft. That makes that these low prices at this early moment of a weekend day are not really surprising to me. My guess is that wind energy provided a big chunk of the demand that was already low because of the soft weather and the early hours of weekend. The forecast of plenty of production combined with low demand results in a low bidding on the day-ahead market.
By the way, the day-ahead price is neither the consumer prices nor the cost of production. The day-ahead price forms the basis for the money that the producers will get the next day for their electricity they produces. If the price is zero, then the producer will produce his electricity for free. If the price is negative, then the producer will have to pay for putting the electricity he produces on the grid. So, I fail to understand the cheering about these negative prices. These are a symptom of an imbalance on the grid and the higher the share of solar and wind, the greater that imbalance will get. That is not something to cheer about.
Or am I missing something here?
via Trust, yet verify
February 29, 2024 at 03:26PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 