The weather affects the price of electricity. That has been confirmed again. A few days of wind resulted in a dip in the electricity price.
After the EPEX Spot quotation showed a small peak on Tuesday, January 18, to €223,31 per MWh, the price has now fallen again. On Thursday, January 20, the quotation reached the lowest level of last week: €160,52 per MWh. Since the weekend, the electricity price has been on the rise again and on Monday, January 24, the EPEX Spot Quote stood at €242,93 per MWh. The dip in the price can largely be attributed to the wind. As a result, there was a large supply of cheaply produced wind energy.
No major change in electricity prices is expected in the coming days. More wind is expected towards the end of the week and so the price of electricity may drop again, as we saw last week.
Is gas and nuclear energy sustainable?
The European Commission is under fire for its decision to designate natural gas and nuclear energy as sustainable energy sources in the energy transition. The Commission wants to designate these sources as green in a so-called 'taxonomy', which offers (tax) benefits for investors. The 'Platform in Sustainable Finance', an advisory body of the European Commission for sustainable finance, made mincemeat on Monday, January 24, of the idea that fossil gas and nuclear energy can be regarded as sustainable in any way.
The committee's idea is that gas-fired power stations will gradually switch to biomethane or green hydrogen during their life cycle. According to the consultants, the most efficient gas-fired power plant emits 316 grams of CO2 per KWh and the process is not green anywhere in its life cycle. This advice therefore goes directly against the vision of the new German government, which sees gas as a good fuel to bridge the transition to a low-carbon energy supply. The Germans expect to close coal-fired power stations and replace them with gas-fired power stations.
The think tank is also critical of nuclear power stations. They write that with nuclear energy it cannot be ruled out that no significant damage will occur that endangers the environmental objectives. With that risk, the think tank has doubts whether this form of energy fits with the goals pursued in the Green Deal.