How dirty electricity is clean, and vice versa – New Technology

       

With electricity, it is one thing what is produced, another thing what you pay for, and a third thing what you get out of the holes in the wall. If you live near a nuclear power plant will nuclear-home, no matter what good environmental choice you made of their electricity company. The electrons go the shortest way. When the nuclear plant is stopped, the electrons from the second nearest power plant, which may be a wind turbine. When we import electricity from Norway is hydro-generated electrons to those who live in the western part of the country, when we buy electricity from Denmark, wind power Scanians half and half fossilel. It is the physical reality.

This also includes the fact that Sweden produce fossil-free electricity, ie electricity from wind power, hydropower and nuclear power.

None of this has any significance in the economic reality.

there are namely the system of guarantees of origin. It came to us as consumers could choose which electricity we pay for – 100 percent wind energy, good environmental, renewables, nuclear power, and so on – and that no authority could keep track of the electricity we choose really fed on the grid anywhere in Sweden. For example, that is not sold more wind power than is produced.

Electricity producers may apply for the guarantee of origin of the Energy Agency. The company has, for example, produced 100 MWh at its hydroelectric plants that have been approved for guarantees of origin. These can be sold along with hydropower electricity to an electricity supplier or used if the electricity is sold directly to the consumer.

But the guarantees of origin may also be sold independently of the electricity, if eltillverkaren better paid that way. For example, the owner of a Danish coal power purchase guarantees, and suddenly, he can sell his fossilel as hydropower in the market.

The result of the buying and selling is that hydro electricity instead may be sold as unmarked ugly electricity.

so the system works, and if you believe in that you get green electricity when choosing it in their power company, you also have to believe that ugly-electricity can be turned into fine-el, and vice versa, by guarantees of origin to change owners. The Inspectorate is the supervisory authority for the origin labeling.

Now we come to residualmixen. It is the elblandning that remains when all electricity with guarantees of origin has been taken away. The residualmix sold in Sweden is called Scandinavian, and consisted in 2014 of 42 percent fossilel, 44 percent nuclear and 14 percent from renewable sources.

27 percent of all electricity sold in Sweden in 2014 consisted of Nordic residualmix. This gave 11 percent of the electricity consumed in Sweden that year clean fossil origin.

In terms of TWh, it looks like this: We used 15 TWh fossilel, though we only produced 4.5 TWh themselves. The difference is 2.5 TWh from imported electricity. The rest will come from trade in guarantees of origin.

There are so electricity trade works. And if you believe in that you get green electricity when choosing it of its power company you also have to believe that we are in 2014, used 15 TWh fossilel in Sweden.

Complicated? It is even worse in Norway. The Norwegian electricity production comes to 99 percent from hydropower. Yet 43 percent of all electricity consumed in Norway fossil origin. 30 percent comes from nuclear and only 27 percent from renewable sources. The Norwegian eltillverkarna have simply sold the guarantees of origin for hydropower to the highest bidder.

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Sources: Interviews and statistics: Swedish Energy Agency, Swedish Energy, Energy Markets Inspectorate, Swedish Grid, EU, SKM.