Due to the New Coronavirus epidemic, the demand for electricity in Europe has fallen sharply. At the same time, since April, wind and solar power generation have also entered the peak of production, which means that the first quarter began to appear in Europe, Germany, France, etc. The country ’s negative electricity prices will continue to occur.
As we all know, the storage of electricity is extremely difficult, but to shut down a thermal power plant or a nuclear power plant, you need to pay a huge cost and spend a considerable amount of time. Therefore, in the face of oversupply, it is entirely economically reasonable to provide electricity at zero or even negative prices.
As a matter of fact, this kind of back-to-back money asking people to use electricity happens more frequently in the wind power and solar power industries. The operating costs of these industries have been minimized. You can send a call. In addition, those power plants that enjoy subsidies are also likely to make money in a negative price environment-as long as the amount of subsidies exceeds the amount of losses, they actually have a profit.
Germany, a “heavy-hit area” with negative electricity prices in Europe, is a major local power producer and exporter. The country ’s power grid has a very high proportion of renewable energy, but its domestic and neighboring countries ’demand is now sluggish. After the completion, the neighbors do not need it, and the serious imbalance of power supply and demand eventually caused a record long-term negative electricity price.
In April, the outbreak caused an unprecedented stress test on the German power system. Although demand has shrunk dramatically due to the economic downturn, supply has skyrocketed due to sufficient sunshine and wind.
Therefore, the wholesale price of electricity has repeatedly fallen into the negative range, which means that the power plant is actually paying the wholesale customers. The latter is asked to use their own electricity, because it is more cost-effective to do so than to shut down the power plant. Experts point out that this is an indication that the flexibility of the German power system is still insufficient.
Dave Jones, an analyst at British climate think tank Ember, explained: “Germany ’s electricity demand reduction is only about half that of other countries, so it ’s natural for people to feel the impact of the German electricity industry It ’s smaller, but the actual situation is just the opposite. This is because, for the first time in history, neighboring countries do n’t need German electricity anymore, they can generate their own electricity. ”
Aurora Energy Research's Hanns Koenig emphasized that both the traditional energy and renewable energy power generation industries must become more mobile to better cope with the increasing proportion of renewable energy in the next few years major trend.
"Electricity prices become negative, because for thermal power plants, it is impossible to stop production, or a less economical option. The fact is that even under negative electricity prices, a large number of renewable energy players in the grid have no clear motivation. stop producing."
This is because, according to the German Renewable Energy Act, regardless of the level of wholesale electricity prices, most renewable energy power plants can obtain the corresponding “grid price subsidies” according to output, even if the electricity price is negative, these subsidies It can also become a stable source of profit.
Another headache for traditional power plants is that, according to a research report released in late April, the overall wholesale electricity price in Europe is likely not fully restored to its previous level by 2025.
Since the outbreak of the New Coronavirus epidemic in Europe, the wholesale electricity price in Europe has staged a tragic crash, which has fallen by 30% to 40%. The speed of electricity price recovery depends on the subsequent development of the outbreak. The researchers took into account the duration of the blockade, demand, supply, commodity prices, investment and financing, etc., built a model, and predicted four possibilities and corresponding results.
Under the most optimistic expectations, electricity prices will recover by 2022, and under deep recession expectations, recovery may take five years.
Editor: Kiko Lee
E-mail: kiko@wanhos.com