Further delay of Nordstream 2, substantially raising gas price

[mtbiking 1,884]

13 minutes ago, jeba said:

These numbers can't be correct. That's already the average cost of electricity, without heating.

 

Ergh, yes. I seem to be more in need of vacations than I thought. You’re absolutely right, obviously. I’m paying around €200/ month for electricity and gas. I’m still willing to double that in order not to fuck up the planet. Or maybe convince the wife and the children to wear their ski clothes at home 🤔

 

PS: practically everybody we visit heat their houses much, much more than we do. I remain convinced that most Germans would die of cold in a average Portuguese home during winter time.

[jeba 4,347]

1 minute ago, mtbiking said:

 

Ergh, yes. I seem to be more in need of vacations than I thought. You’re absolutely right, obviously. I’m paying around €220/ month for electricity and gas. I’m still willing to double that in order not to fuck up the planet. Or maybe convince the wife and the children to wear their ski clothes at home 🤔

Or install a photovoltaic device.

[mtbiking 1,884]

9 minutes ago, jeba said:

Or install a photovoltaic device.

yess.. I had a couple offers in march last year. Around €25,000 for everything including battery. Then came the financial meltdown and I invested the cash in the stock market instead. We’re greedy that way 😐

 

PS: we already have a thermal photovoltaic, so we barely use any gas from March to end October.

[jeba 4,347]

9 hours ago, mtbiking said:

yess.. I had a couple offers in march last year. Around €25,000 for everything including battery.

Another reason to move to Cyprus. Not only is there more sun but you also don´t need batteries as you can use the public grid as your battery (you get a kWh credit for what you feed into the grid and only have to pay a small fee (around 3 Cents/kWh) for what you re-import). I´m using electricity for heating and still have total yearly energy costs of below € 150.-. That´s with a 4kWp system for about € 7200.-. Germany should take heed (ok, it will be difficult to increase the amount of sunshine, but then you don´t need as much air-conditioning) to the net metering system.

[mtbiking 1,884]

If I move anywhere it’s back to Portugal, which would similarly reduce my energy costs anyway. Otherwise you’re right, the German government should make a more enticing case in order to convince me instead of the current swamp that is its energy policy. And now they can only think of forcing people instead of, you know, making the laws actually better.
 

It’s hard to be bothered to spend money on overpriced Photovoltaic systems when afterward I’m overburdened with bureaucracy and costs and I get peanuts for the produced electricity anyway. If it was more straightforward I’d have a system already.  In comparison, those extra €25,000 that I invested in March have returned around €1500/month so far for around 10 min of my time. That’s a lot of electricity.

[Gambatte 897]

15 hours ago, mtbiking said:

yess.. I had a couple offers in march last year. Around €25,000 for everything including battery.

 

Do not get a battery.

I have a largeish PV, ohne Akku, and I got offers for Akku ca 1.5yr ago.

 

In short:

the Akku costs 10x as much as it would make us save

 

In long:

I gathered every day our electricity data: how much we feed into the grid, Efeed, and how much we draw from the grid Edraw.

Say we had an akku with capacity Eakkucapacity. How much would this lower the energy we draw from the grid on a given day?

Daytime the Akku would get loaded by an amount:

Eload = min(Efeed, Eakkucapacity)

so our grid draw would be lowered by :

min(Edraw,Eload) = min(Edraw,min(Efeed,Eakkucapacity))

here is the catch: you need BOTH Edraw and Efeed to be significant, otherwise you won't benefit much. There are many days where Edraw is large (cloudy winter days, our max is ca 8kWh), and also many days where Efeed is large (sunny summer days, our max >45kWh), but they are not very useful: you need days with BOTH Edraw and Efeed large, and these are basically none. Unless you bake tons of cakes every summer night.

The financial benefit, for any given day would be:

min(Edraw,min(Efeed,Ecap)) * (0.3-0.1)

assuming you buy and sell electricity at 0.3 and 0.1 eur/kWh respectively.

I'm ignoring the tax, but this wouldn't change the numbers enough to change the final conclusion

So if you gather these data EVERY DAY, for a 1year period, you can estimate the financial aspect of Akku over its 10yr lifetime (vendors give 10yr guarantee, tough they want you to expect 20yr).

And this is exactly what I did: I gathered my electricity data EVERY DAY since I installed the PV >1yr ago, put them into a simple Excel sheet, did the math over the 1yr period, multiplied for 10 or 20 yr, and compared it with the cost of an Akku. Outcome: Akku x10 too expensive.

Other interesting point: say the Akku price was reasonable. What Akku size would be good for us? Circa 3kWh, again outcome from my model based on the data I gathered, bigger Akku would make zero difference because either we need it but we can't charge it (winter), or we can charge it but we don't need it (summer). But no vendor sells anything less than 10kWh (smaller ones do exist, but almost impossible to buy). Why? Maybe because this way they convince you paying more. Like overspecced car, PC, smartphone, bicycles. 

 

I can send you my Excel if you want (you wouldn't even be the first from TT to get it).

[Krieg 14,926]

Thanks @Gambatte that actually confirm what I've though .    I would go the extra mile and say that batteries are completely unnecessarily when you live in a city, you already have a giant battery, the network.  If governments want us to move to greener energy they should instead work in that giant gap between "selling" and "buying" electricity, at the moment I find it totally unreasonable because at the end you are not really selling that electricity, you are only "parking" it there for later use.  They should come with another model where the electricity company charge users a reasonable amount for that parking, lets say 2 or 3c per kw.  Then the taxes would be only over the parking fees.

 

 

Edit: Damn, I didn't read the whole thread before posting and @jeba already mentioned that my idea is already implemented in Cyprus.

[Gambatte 897]

More on domestic Photovoltaik:

 

The finance:

yes, they are very expensive. I collect data for our household every day, and extrapolate over the 20yr lifetime of the system. Including purchase, feed-in and tax (also MwSt.), tax advisor, loan interest, replacing the inverter after its 10yr lifetime, and whatsnot, the balance is positive. But although positive is extremely small. So if you think of it as a financial investement, you better do something else with that cash.

 

The enviroment:

I don't know how much damage to the planet producing the module does, so can't really do the math. My guess is the net contribution to the environment is good, but extremely modest. You guys don't know me, but everybody around me know I'm an hard core environment fanatic.

 

So what's good in domestic PV?

Because they are fun (if you are weird enough, I am), and you can play with the data they produce, and you can fool yourself and your mates that you are saving the planet. A little like buying Tesla: overpriced, dubious environmentally, but still fun to own and boast about it.

 

 

 

[Gambatte 897]

51 minutes ago, Krieg said:

If governments want us to move to greener energy...

@Krieg

I see where you come from and I'm a little uncomfortable to criticize you but...

it's not good to criticize "the government". It should be down to us to want to save the planet. We wouldn't be saving "the planet owned by the government", which we may or we may not care. We would be saving OUR planet. Like saving our health, our house, our career, we don't do it for the government. We do it because it is in our selfish interest.

 

Some people if they screw their house still have enough money to buy a new one. Yet they still care about their house.

But if we screw our planet, do we have enough money to buy a new one? No. Yet, we don't seem to care much about it.

[Krieg 14,926]

Sure, but not everyone has the financial means to invest in a solar system with the current situation.  If they were not so expensive and the conditions were better much more people would do it, there are enough "green"  people in Germany, you just have to provide a fairer system, like Cyprus did.

[fraufruit 41,947]

Don't forget the millions upon millions of apartment dwellers who don't have such options. We feel left out of the whole solar movement.

[Gambatte 897]

All fair guys.

 

I'm not really advocating in favor of domestic PV.

If you care about preserving our planet there are sure better things we can do: lower consumption, most of it is not necessary.

[Fietsrad 386]

Energy is surely too cheap now.

 

Many people have their homes so warm that they are wearing t-shirts inside in winter.

 

Most public buildings, trains, buses are overheated, that is awful when one has been outside on a cold day and the temperature inside is t-shirt weather. Especially on a short journey - strip off for ten minutes, then get dressed again?

[Gambatte 897]

23 hours ago, mtbiking said:

€25,000 that I invested in March have returned around €1500/month

@mtbiking

Math correct?

1500*12/25000 = 0.72

Not that I don't believe it, but a return equivalent to a yearly 72% is pretty extraordinary.

 

Merry Christmas everyone

 

[mtbiking 1,884]

4 hours ago, Gambatte said:

@mtbiking

Math correct?

1500*12/25000 = 0.72

Not that I don't believe it, but a return equivalent to a yearly 72% is pretty extraordinary.

 

Merry Christmas everyone

 

that one was easy for me to compute. It has been 9 months so far, not 12, and I invested it in Berkshire Hathaway (I think I mentioned it back then in the investments thread), which was low for a few months after the crash. It’s up 52% since I bought, 25000x0.52/9 = €1444. I rounded up 😛 the euro has been devaluating vs the dollar, which of course also plays a role.
 

We bought when the world seemed to be going under, at least according to some.. do you remember the investment thread last year? shadows of 2008. 

 

merry Christmas!!

 

PS: sh.. I just realized my mistake: I bought in march 2020 and not 2021, you’re absolutely correct, time flies and I need the vacations. So it’s 21 and not 9 months  for the 52%. I’m going to stop posting now 😫

[Rushrush 286]

Great Reddit thread here on LNG imports in the Europe.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ro18mu/flotilla_of_us_lng_tankers_heading_to_europe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[jeba 4,347]

On 23.12.2021, 21:12:03, yourkeau said:

You betrayed Ukraine for cheap gas,

What would you have the German government expected to do? Send the Bundeswehr to the Krim?

[yourkeau 7,719]

4 hours ago, jeba said:

What would you have the German government expected to do? Send the Bundeswehr to the Krim?

The German government is expected to pray what they preach. They preach European unity, in contrast to Brits and Americans who only think of themselves, and then they do exactly what Brits and Americans do: egoistically approve and fund Nord Stream 2, so that the Russians can cut gas of Poland, Italy, Greece (EU members, BTW). 

 

If you think that European Union and NATO is bullshit, just dismantle it (and go back to Germany). At least the Brits are honest. 

 

 

[Fietsrad 386]

Pray what they preach? None of the green ministers mentioned God when they were sworn in.😕

[yourkeau 7,719]

The Greens are the only Bundestag party that were consistently against Putin, Erdogan, China, and Nord Stream 2.  

 

Time will show if they abide by Realpolitik rules or not.