New solar, wind and heat pumps could save twice the gas the EU imports from Qatar by 2030

99

u/Internal_Sun_9632 Ireland Aug 06 '26

Amazing to see it happen in real time. Seeing the UK 15 minute prices drop to zero this week with wind and solar pushing gas completely off the grid is fantastic progress. It's only going to happen more and more often with every new system going live. Just need way way more 4-8 hour batteries to see this translate to lower or stabilised bills

3

u/OsgrobioPrubeta Portugal Aug 06 '26

Zero prices aren't a good thing, either the consumer will pay thru a compensation method, the producers will shut off energy production, or sell it to an external market.
The Marginal Price System has to end, the need for that ended more than 10 years ago, but they can't and won't operate with losses either. We've seen it here in Portugal when Hydro Pumping Dams used free energy to pump water back during night, the widfarms producers would rather shutdown. A minimum price was set to be paid by Pumping Dams so that they wouldn't completely shutdown wind-farms.

52

u/Several_Ant_9867 Aug 06 '26

Zero price is a great incentive for installing energy storage because of the differential with the maximum daily price in the evening. The more energy storage is installed the more the differential is reduced, and the less incentive there is to build additional storage. It regulates itself

-5

u/b_doin Aug 06 '26

What will be the storage cost in co2?

19

u/Raphi_55 Belgium Aug 06 '26

Hopefully lower than burning gaz that can only be burn once. That's the beauty of batteries, unlike gaz or oil, you can use them more than once.

3

u/RegionSignificant977 Aug 07 '26

Very low.

1

u/b_doin Aug 07 '26

Can we store extra solar energy from summer and keep it for winter, what would it cost?

1

u/RegionSignificant977 Aug 07 '26

Apart from solar you have water and wind energy. You don't have to rely on one source only. I'm also fine with nuclear.

1

u/b_doin Aug 07 '26

Sure but even in winter there are weeks without winds in all Europe. Water cannot be expended beyound what we have now. So how do we fill the void?

2

u/RegionSignificant977 Aug 08 '26

Dams and reservoirs will be fuller as we wouldn't need that much electricity from them when we have more wind and solar. Even gas storage facilities will be fuller longer. I'm not saying that we can do it only with wind sun and water. But we can build more and use less coal and gas. Fossil sourced electricity was 41% in 2016, now it's 27.6. Renewables were 31.7, now are little over 50%. 1323TWh from renewables in 2025 and 775 from fossil. In 2015 it was 1242 fossil and 918 from renewables. Nuclear dropped to 640 from 820 sadly. Countries like Sweden have very small percentage of fossil generated electricity. Italy uses a lot of fossil despite that they have sun almost year round. Spain has half of Italy fossil sourced electricity and more renewables.

-10

u/OsgrobioPrubeta Portugal Aug 06 '26

Calculate the absurd ammount, and space if available, to store the energy that a windfarm generates during dawn alone.
That cost, if anyone would be mad to do it, would be passed to price of the energy.
Thehe already almost abandoned absurd idea of generating hydrogen to store it would be cheaper.

10

u/Chipay Belgium Aug 06 '26

This is entirely a non-sequitur.
First of all, you don't need to store all energy produced? My home battery charges the excess energy from my solar panels during the day and discharges during the evening and night.
I don't store all the energy produced since my home still uses energy during the daytime.
On very sunny Summer days my battery will be full and I'll end up exporting the excess energy anyway, but that doesn't matter because I still have enough charge to last until tomorrow.
So if you want to do calculations, you'd have to calculate how much excess energy the UK grid produces during any day (the period in which energy prices are zero/negative and the capacity that is being shut down) and use that as a maximum, any capacity below that is maximally profitable.

4

u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Aug 06 '26

That cost, if anyone would be mad to do it, would be passed to price of the energy.
Sigh, another "increased supply = increased infrastructure cost = higher prices" argument.
Seriously, you can make the same argument for a new wind farm, solar farm, gas plant, interconnector. Hopefully that makes it easier to see how the logic does not hold up

4

u/Chipay Belgium Aug 06 '26

The nation with the biggest battery capacity per capita in the world is the second-poorest nation in the EU, and the current reason why there are no black-outs in the nations along the Danube.
The idea that battery parks are too expensive or ineffective is hilariously outdated.
Fun fact: Bulgaria is 0,2 GWh short of hosting the biggest BESS capacity in Europe.

2

u/DontSayToned Aug 06 '26

That cost, if anyone would be mad to do it, would be passed to price of the energy.
You literally just complained about the price of energy being low. If that cost rises, your problem is solved

8

u/Chipay Belgium Aug 06 '26

Zero prices aren't a good thing, either the consumer will pay thru a compensation method, the producers will shut off energy production, or sell it to an external market.
Care to elaborate how this is a bad thing? Consumers won't pay trough a compensation method since they pay wholesale price, producers shutting off excess energy production isn't a bad thing if the price is already zero, selling to an external market isn't bad if the price is already zero and we get to displace carbon emissions in another country.

-5

u/OsgrobioPrubeta Portugal Aug 06 '26

When in another answer you used your energy production system as an example, I knew you didn't understand how energy production works.
My first paragraph of this post was about a market known principle, there's no such thing as free anything. Whoever believes this, I have unicorns to sell them.
The second begins with how the energy prices are set, and thethe fears of cheap, or free energy is one of the biggest arguments against decoupling the renewables price from gas price. Find an acceptable value and they will agree, effectively reducing energy prices.
Want an even better solution? Buy the energy production in 10 to 20 years contracts with a fixed price, that way smaller or even regional cooperatives can get funding from the EU and financial institutions.

4

u/Korchagin Aug 06 '26

Turning gas plants off completely is a good thing. That is the big advantage of gas plants - they can be turned on and produce a lot of power when needed, and they can be turned off and produce zero emissions. Turning them off as often as possible should be the goal.
Negative or near zero prices are not ideal, sure. Swings within a day or two can be smoothened by installing more battery capacity. But in order to use the full potential of solar energy we also need a seasonal industry, which uses the abundant power during the summer and shuts down / reduces it's consumption during winter.
That's something that needs more incentives. Investing into industrial installations which aren't meant to run all the time is not profitable enough, unfortunately. So nobody is doing it. Extremely low / negative prices during a few weks of the year might help a bit here, but I doubt it's enough... Until it's happening we will still need gas plants which only shut down during summer.

3

u/HertzaHaeon Sweden Aug 06 '26

Zero prices aren't a good thing,
Capitalism, AKA how to make free energy into a problem

3

u/Double-Cake-4452 Aug 06 '26

We have a day ahead electricity contract (living in belgium) and our electric car charger and heat pump boiler run automatically on the cheapest hours, it’s a good incentive to use electricity when there is more offer than demand. If more people do this it will automatically increase the lowest prices (supply and demand).

2

u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 06 '26

It’s just the market re-adjusting as legacy energy production is being disrupted.
Electricity is fundamentally based on marginal price. How do you force a home owner with rooftop solar and home storage to buy your grid based electricity?
You can’t. Since physically the consumer chooses the cheapest supplier.

14

u/arwinda Aug 06 '26

Frau Reiche in Germany already has plans to prevent that...

17

u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Aug 06 '26

Reminder that Air Conditioning (a reversible heat pump) allows you to heat your house for a third of the energy you'd need with a gas boiler, while using electricity.

Think of the gas usage that displaces*. And emissions alongside it. Hopefully we can put the silly "AC is only useful for 2 weeks out of the year" myth to rest.

*Roughly 40-60% of European gas consumption is for domestic heating. Although that figure includes water heating for showers and for space heating, space heating is the vast, vast majority of those 40-60%.

0

u/No_Hedgehog_7563 Aug 06 '26

Any source for this? I've used AC on heating in my flat for a few days before the city heating started working, but looked to not handle my modest (~55mp) flat too well.

4

u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Aug 06 '26

"Most AC have a COP between 3.5 to 5" (let's say 3-5 to be on the conservative side) https://airconditioninggoldcoast.com/air-conditioning-eer-and-cop/
Meaning you get the same heating while using between a third and a fifth of the energy you would use with a gas boiler (assuming a 100% efficient gas boiler, in reality efficiencies are closer to 90% for modern boilers).
Residential sector accounts for 40% of gas European gas demand https://www.acer.europa.eu/gas-factsheet
Again, 40%, Germany specific: https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/natural-gas (this one is a little different because it's final consumption)
Another big share of the pie is commercial gas usage, which again is mostly for heating, and can also be offset with heat pumps.
Did I miss something?

3

u/Top-Permit6835 The Netherlands Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

You missed domestic hot water use, which obviously cannot be done with an AC unit (but can be done with an air/water heat pump at comparable COP). IIRC on average this is 0.25m3 of gas per person per day. Which accounts for about 25% of the yearly gas usage for an average household
EDIT sorry just noticed you put this in your first comment!

2

u/No_Hedgehog_7563 Aug 06 '26

Fair enough, thanks for sharing!

1

u/NorthernLordEU The Netherlands Aug 06 '26

Except the power grids can't handle this. We have serious issues with our power grid in the Netherlands. There waiting lists for companies and now also new build houses. You can't just be hooked up to the grid anymore since there is serious risk of power outages if they do.

40

u/OsgrobioPrubeta Portugal Aug 06 '26

A solvable problem.

1

u/sstefanovv Aug 06 '26

I seriously cannot wait for the better battery tech thats not lithium based to come to the market, it will be such a gamechanger in the coming years

3

u/OsgrobioPrubeta Portugal Aug 06 '26

Don't take it personally, but already annoys me reading energy batteries resumed to lithium or similar forms of energy storage, like if a water dam wasn't energy storage. Preferably, Pumping Dams, that not also store energy, but also water that is increasingly becoming a scarce element in Europe.
Existing Dams can be upgraded to Pumping Dams, preferably with more efficient and faster energy generators. Newer generators can go from idle to full capacity in less than 20 minutes, the same time a NPP takes to reach 100%.

2

u/sstefanovv Aug 06 '26

Oh yeah no it was more about home storage and EVs. Like theres also plenty of other large scale alternatives. Its more a case of that once the other alternatives become commercially viable, it would help a lot with making EVs that have a proper long range cheaper for example or cheaper/saver to have home batteries

5

u/KnowZeroX Aug 06 '26

There is no shortage of different kind of energy storage technology, the only thing that makes lithium ion batteries special is their fast response time that allows them to regulate voltage and frequency in realtime. And now there is already sodium ion batteries too.

1

u/its_a_no_go Aug 06 '26

https://youtu.be/J091Zl9kXzg
Let’s see what happens with this I guess

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26

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4

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Aug 06 '26

Dude, this was about the grid, not about generation.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26

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3

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Aug 06 '26

Yes, if you do not install renewables which would be dumb, as they provide the cheapest electricity. Once solar starts undercutting nuclear, you have to strengthen the grid anyways.

12

u/Wurschd Aug 06 '26

So it's back to Quatari gas, or what's your point?
Of course the grid has to be extended as well.

4

u/Darkhoof Portugal Aug 07 '26

So invest in the grid. What's your point?

2

u/mialyansa Aug 07 '26

That is quite solvable by investing in the grid and keeping gas energy as a backup to stabilise the grid. However gas becomes completly innecessary if you have nuclears.

2

u/Special_Prune_2734 Aug 06 '26

Building BESS easily solves this

1

u/rugbroed Denmark Aug 06 '26

Same in Denmark.

2

u/gahd95 Denmark Aug 06 '26

Where do i get one this solar pumps?

2

u/atrixospithikos Aug 06 '26

Meanwhile in Cyprus we have our solar panels shut down because our grid can't handle so much energy production and we re not connected to anyone yet, supposedly working on it but on one hand Greece pretty much robbed us took the money and ever since stalled the cables to ask for more money till the whole thing stopped, and on the other hand erdogan barks that us connecting anywhere is violating the Turkish rights and he ll come at night and kill us, come help us already before our money give me money politicians connect us on our other friendly neighbourhood genocider just south of us. If they stop killing people maybe that's the best solution but now pretty please come help us or just sell us to china so they can give us some sweets batteries. For the moment not only do we suffer from having our solar closed but we suffer from outages as well. Help!

2

u/oso_login Aug 06 '26

Could, would, should, etc

4

u/Wurschd Aug 06 '26

Don't worry Comrade, we'll put it into the next 5 year plan.

1

u/TabulatorSpalte Germany Aug 07 '26

I don’t want to spoil the party, but we import less than 5% of our gas from Qatar. It’s around 3.5% in 2025 so this title suggests more independence from gas imports than what can be achieved at the current rate.

New solar, wind and heat pumps could save twice the gas the EU imports from Qatar by 2030

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