For reference, the price for fixed-cost plans is around 10c/kWh.
As someone who’s been constantly running an electric heater in the garage while painting my car, I was quite lucky with the timing.
It’s not literally free, though. Transfer prices are fixed, and there are taxes and some other minor costs associated with it, so where I live, it still adds up to around 6c/kWh even when the price drops to zero. The cheap prices are due to an excess of wind power, but once the wind dies down, prices usually spike hard.
I initially read that as 0.11/kWh and was wondering why that was such a big deal since I pay $0.13/kWh. Then I noticed the c.
December-January we’ll probably see prices 1000-3000% higher than that again. Wish we had more nuclear reactors.
Agreed. We should build much more of it to the point where we’d basically be powering our southern and western neighbours too.
So you have prices 5000% larger all year around?
Posting this again because some people don’t realize just how expensive nuclear really is.
As fossil burning has been left behind and there isn’t enough storage for renewable energy, nuclear is our best option currently.
It’s way cheaper to build storage than new nuclear.
You seem to think nuclear power is cheap. It is not. Renewable energy with storage is much cheaper.
It’s a great example to show electric energy based on wind, water, solar is the way to go - not only because it’s more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels of any kind or nuclear, but it’s economically better as well.
Thanks for sharing!It’s more of an example of how we don’t have anywhere near enough storage for existing renewables.
This is actually an area that’s developing quite quickly. In 2023, California managed to put almost 14mw worth of storage on the grid; if they keep building out at that rate, peaky/transient power sources like wind and solar will have someplace to park until someone needs that energy. Almost 12mw of that was utility storage; it’s like the utilities have the chance to get out of the business of producing power themselves and into the role of renting storage (or buying surplus energy then selling it later when it’s needed)
Granted, 14mw isn’t a lot in the scale of California, but the rate of growth in grid-storage over time is humongous
10gwh is last report I have of CA utility battery storage.
It’s fair pointing out the lack of (sufficient) storage for electric energy, but I’d say the average price of electricity in Finland for the past week indicates both capabilities of renawables and lack of storage.
I have nothing against nuclear energy personally. I wish we’d build more of it. Currently about 2/5th is wind power, 2/5th nuclear and 1/5 hydro. When there’s no wind and it’s cold outside we see prices in the 30 - 70c/kWh which is insanely expensive. If we had huge storage capacity and much, much more wind turbines then maybe it could work.
Compared to fossil fuels I tend to prefer nuclear as well, because even though mining uranium has quite some ecological impact including emitting carbon emissions, running a nuclear power plant doesn’t have carbon emissions and that’s important.
What worries me is that there are nuclear power plants around the world and despite the first nuclear power plant having been built 70 years ago, not a single ultimate disposal place for the radioactive waste has been found/created.
Having “cheap” electric energy for 3-4 generations and putting a burden on the next 40,000 generations just does sound like a bad deal to me.
Until we have more wind and hydro, keeping nuclear running might be a price we have to pay.
Not being able to dispose of some more (thousands of) tons of radioactive waste is making the problem only quantitatively worse and not qualitatively.not a single ultimate disposal place for the radioactive waste has been found/created.
Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository
Also something to keep in mind is that high level waste which is the spent fuel is only about 3 - 5% of the total radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. Majority of the waste has way lower levels of radiation and it’s things like reactor parts and safety equipment.
I stand corrected regarding ultimate disposal and apparently they are planning to use it in a clever way.
Thank you for letting me know!Well it’s also the first and only one of its kind so you weren’t too far off.
cries in swedish
USD?
Euros but it’s basically the same in USD
In Malaysia it’s rm0.218/kwh, around €0.05. I wonder if they will chop down the electric price further if they switch to these renewable so AC is much more accessible for low income family. Feels like sauna here whenever it’s sunny day and would be worst in the future.
There are still costs attached to maintaining the network that provides electricity, so it can’t really be free unless it’s nationalised and paid for by taxes (which still isn’t free).
Well, in Malaysia, our electricity is provided by TNB, which is state owned company, and power generation so far is mostly coal and natural gas. The pricing is controlled by government, but since the price is at a low side globally, it’s heavily subsidised. Though the pricing is tiered, the more you use the more expensive it get per kwh.
I doubt they will be free, just lower the price a bit more for the first tier and everyone will be happy.
Thank you. I didn’t know that.
