Lack of Wind Pushes Europe’s Power Prices Higher
Just as cold Sets in, Lack of Wind Pushes Europe’s Power Prices Higher.
Amid a sharp pivot from its reliance on Russian natural gas, Europe has built up large reserves of stored gas ahead of this year’s heating season. That has helped ease power and gas prices recently. A particularly mild spell of weather across the continent also helped by pushing back gas withdrawals and keeping stockpiles topped off.
Now, though, colder weather in many places is kicking in at the same time wind speeds have fallen, bolstering demand for gas while reducing the ability of wind farms to generate electricity. This week, wind speeds in Hamburg fell to around 5 meters a second, or about 11 miles an hour, according to the weather forecasting site windy.com. That is the minimum speed required for electricity generation. Speeds of around 15 meters a second, or 33 mph, are needed to produce maximum power generation.The sort of high-pressure systems dominating Europe at the moment tend to result in less wind, said Evangeline Cookson, meteorologist and research analyst at Marex Spectron. Such anomalies in wind speed aren’t particularly unusual. But this one is coming at a time when European governments are observing energy use as they navigate their first winter largely without Russian gas. It also comes at a time of extra sensitivity among consumers and companies to soaring energy bills.
The still spell also comes as France, a key power exporter in Europe, is struggling to get a big chunk of its fleet of nuclear power plants up and running after maintenance issues. Meanwhile, hydropower generation has also struggled. River levels dropped to multiyear lows after the continent experienced a scorching summer.
Day-ahead power prices in Germany for Friday were at 361 euros a megawatt hour, equivalent to $377, up from €108 in the middle of last month, according to data from European Energy Exchange AG. Natural-gas prices have also risen sharply given the extra demand, with benchmark Dutch TTF prices on Thursday sitting above €158 a megawatt hour, having sat at €123 a megawatt hour at the start of the week.
Wind Not Taking Orders
Wind speed is not high enough and the direction is totally wrong.
Europe needs heavy Westerly winds over North Germany and France. Instead, it’s been getting light Northeasterly winds.
I believe President needs to issue an executive order pronto, letting the wind and Mother Nature know who is in charge.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com.
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Mish
The world is full of very complicated issues. And there are rarely any easy solutions to these problems.
The citizens in these countries are so ignorant that they will re-elect the same leaders who failed to provide enough affordable energy.
More useless moaning and complaining from the peanut gallery here. Too bad all these ignorant people won’t put you in charge of all these cities, states and countries. Because only you can fix it. Right? What is “your” brilliant plan to fix everything?
In other words, if the wind speed doubles, you can get eight times the wind power from it up to the turbines maximum wind speed.”