Cold Winter Could Spell Disaster for EU's energy policy

There are significant signs that a cold winter is on the way for Northern Europe. The Polar Vortex is notably very weak for this time of the year. This means a weak jetstream, eastern winds and a cold winter. During the previous two winters we had a strong jetstream and strong westerlies, which explains why they were so mild. The Polar Vortex looked very different at this time of the year to what it looks like now i.e. much stronger. While Europe had mild winters, America had cold severe winters :

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/niagara-falls-freezes-incredible-pictures-show-falls-partially-frozen-as-polar-vortex-is-set-hit-us-10055691.html

Coupled with the current weak Polar Vortex is a projected negative Atlantic Oscillation. There were also signs of a cold winter back in August when heavy snow fell in Germany to an extent not seen since 2009.

The problem for Europe in the event of a severe winter is inadequate generation capacity. France will be shutting down five of its nuclear reactors over the coming months.  This creates a big problem because other countries that have invested heavily in renewables are dependent on French imports. 

Comparing the French grid for October 2016 Vs October 2015 shows up a change in imports / exports profile :

You can see that last year, France was exporting large amounts of power whereas this year it is exporting much less and indeed importing half of the time. Belgium has also been having problems with their nuclear fleet recently. Spain which was importing up to 2GW this time last year is now exporting most of the time. Germany are also full time net exporters. This can change if output from renewables declines in these countries.

A cold winter accompanied by high pressure and low winds will put the Energy Union to the ultimate test. 

Grid Costs Set to Rise to Meet 2020 Targets

Grid costs will cost households and businesses an additional € 354 million next year as part of a large rollout of grid and transmission networks. The Energy Regulator explains :

The five years from 2016 to 2020 will require continued investment in the transmission system and delivering ongoing infrastructure projects. The PR3 period was characterised by the initiation of a large scale infrastructure delivery programme in order to meet 2020 renewable generation targets

So the transition to the green economy doesn't involve dismantling of the existing fossil fuel system. Instead, it means adding capacity and grid infrastructure paid for by you and me. This is fast turning into a gravy train for whoever has the best idea for extracting more money from electricity bills, or in economic terms, a bubble. 

The same is happening elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, grid costs will soon rise by a whopping 45%-80% as network infrastructure struggles to keep up with all the additional capacity :

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/tennet-und-50hertz-erhoehen-netzentgelte-a-1113741.html

There is no going back now. We have committed ourselves to a crazy energy policy. No wonder the European Union is no longer as popular as it used to be.

Germany: 350,000 households had electricity disconnected last year

Germany has the second highest electricity prices in the EU, after Denmark and ahead of Ireland who are third. The following is taken from an article in Der Spiegel from yesterday which reports that the highest number of disconnections was recorded last year. Is this a sign of things to come here in Ireland ?

Because of rising prices, more and more German citizens are unable to pay their electricity bills. Exactly 351,802 residential customers in primary care, the current was 2014 temporarily disconnected, report the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) and the Federal Cartel Office in its new monitoring report. The paper is to be adopted on Wednesday in the Cabinet, it is SPIEGEL ONLINE excerpts before.

Yet far more households have problems with their electricity bill.According to the Federal Network Agency supplier threatened its customers a total of 6.3 million times, the power to cut.The number of power cuts is therefore increased to the highest value ever recorded. In 2013 344.798 barriers had been imposed, in 2012 there were approximately 320,000.

Households pay more, industry profits

The main reason for the increasing number of barriers are the rapidly rising electricity prices. Since 2002, the costs for consumers almost doubled, partly because the levy for renewables rose, on the other hand because the big power utilities reduced costs not passed on to consumers.

Victims are the households. Your electricity costs are around 45 percent higher than the EU average of 20.52 cents per kilowatt hour. Adjusted for taxes industrial electricity price however is 6.27 cents per kilowatt hour, well below the EU average of 9.37 per kilowatt hour.

Further increases are expected to be announced in the coming week. The power companies need their customers to be notified no later than November 20 planned price changes for 2016th Experience has shown that many send the unpopular increase letters at the last minute.By 2016, several utilities have already announced further increases. On average, this will be just over three per cent, which would mean a four-person household an additional cost of approximately 40 euros per year.

The Greens Group Vice Oliver Krischer keeps developing at the current locks for worrying. "Consumers who are threatened with electricity and gas barriers, need special counseling and support services," he says. "The fact that a government has undertaken with the participation of the Social Democrats to this day nothing about this issue, is an indictment."

News from Germany and UK

The German Association for plant construction this month have issued a warning about the damage that increased cycling of power plants, due to balancing of renewables on the grid, is having on generation equipment :

http://www.fdbr.de/fileadmin/Dateien/Pressemitteilungen/FDBR-PM_2014_03.pdf

The FBDR is the German association for process plant construction in the energy, environment and process industries. Their press release of the 6^thOctober 2014 below lays it bare in that that thermal power stations remain as a central factor for a reliable electricity supply and that existing plants are not technically laid out for the operational requirements of today, which naturally is being altered due to the highly intermittent input of increasing amounts of solar and wind energy on to the grid. As the press release points out even if Germany was to meet a 100% renewable potential, it would still need to guarantee it through a back-up performance of 80 GW by means of conventional power stations.

This rapid increase in renewables in recent years in Germany has put operational demands on existing gas and coal power plants, which are simply not technically designed for it. The plants must be more frequently switched on and off in order to be able to compensate for the fluctuations, which are associated with electrical inputs from sun, wind and water. The degree of load change is partly more than 200 times higher than that permissible for the power station. As a result the danger of lasting damage to the power  plants grows – along with increasing risks to the security of electrical supply.   On  their own the plant operators cannot come up with the necessary investment for the technical conversion of thermal power plants. Already we have reached the situation where the operation of conventional gas and coal power plants is barely profitable, even to the point that the regulated maintenance is more and more being postponed. Correspondingly the political process is being called upon, not only to promote pumped storage and transmission systems, but also to integrate the existing power stations into their planning. “If you want the Energiewende (energy transformation), you must also provide for your back-up cover”.

And the UK National Grid have issued a report stating that they are facing a capacity shortage this winter, with emergency measures including "load shedding" of heavy industrial users where factories will revert to their own sources of electricity generation i.e. diesel generators, in order to reduce peak demand (essentially a transfer from coal to diesel power) :

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/10/28/wheels-coming-off.html

So will the new 400 million euros East West Interconnector be lying idle over the winter as a result ?