The price of electricity has risen sharply over the past week. The calmer weather is one of the reasons for this. The high prices for fossil energy carriers, such as coal and gas, again predominate.
The EPEX Spot quotation was at the lowest level in seven days on Wednesday, March 2, at €244,05 per MWh. This price has now risen rapidly to €392,56 per MWh. That is a price level we have not seen since mid-December. There is a similarity between today's peak and that of a few months ago. Even then there was a fear of a gas shortage, which caused the gas price to skyrocket. The electricity price also quickly followed suit.
The reason for the relatively high price for electricity is largely due to the calm, windless weather. The supply of wind energy is therefore lower and hardly fluctuated last week. That was different a few weeks ago, with large differences between daily prices. The supply of solar energy increases as the days lengthen. Due to the stable weather, the yield can also be predicted reasonably well for the grid operator. Emergency power has therefore hardly been called up by TenneT.
Sustainability
The Central Bureau of Statistics has also announced that Dutch production of sustainable energy increased by 22% last year. In contrast, the production of electricity from fossil energy has shrunk by 11%. The share of renewable energy in total electricity production therefore amounts to 33%. This puts our country in the European middle bracket.
Wind is the most important source of sustainable energy, followed by sun and biomass. Gas is the most important energy source among fossil fuels. It is striking that the production of electricity with coal increased last year compared to the previous year: 16,54 billion KWh versus 9,59 billion KWh.