That massive spike of 50c/kWh at the left looks tiny compared to today even though that’s already insanely expensive

    • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Overall electricity is relatively cheap in Finland. Historically they were oil heated, which is not very cheap either.

      We do not have gas lines in Finland, so we cannot use that like other parts of Europe. This is now of course better because we are not depending on Russian gas.

      Previously we got parts of electricity from Russia, but that shutdown after the Ukraine war.

    • idefix@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      Pretty common here in France and it’s cheap enough. Why would you think it would be expensive? And expensive compared to what?

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        When you say it’s common, are you talking about heat pumps or old-fashioned resistive heating? I’m not very familiar with heat pumps since they weren’t common at all when and where I bought a house, but at least where I lived it was normal to have either an oil or a gas furnace for heating. Resistive electric heating cost a lot more to operate and so it was generally used only where it would be too difficult or expensive to install a furnace and hot water pipes or hot air ducts. For example, some friends of mine lived in a 19th century house which was meant to be heated by a wood fireplace and they also had electric heaters in the bedrooms, whereas my own house was built in 1980 so it had an oil tank, a furnace in the basement, and hot-water radiators.

        (My own house also had a modern wood stove in the living room and buying firewood was even cheaper than buying heating oil, but the problem was that the wood stove took a lot of work and it only heated the living room since it wasn’t connected to any mechanism for spreading the heat to the rest of the house.)

        • dan@upvote.au
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          10 months ago

          Heat pumps have been commonplace outside North America for a long time. We call them “reverse cycle air conditioners” in Australia and they’ve been around for at least 20 years.

          It’s not new technology. Your fridge is also a heat pump for example.

        • idefix@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          I was talking about the old-fashion one. It’s really common across France even though modern housing have heat pumps. Oil furnaces have almost completely disappeared and the gas one are in the process of being replaced as well. Electricity is cheaper here than in most countries (thanks to nuclear power plants).

    • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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      10 months ago

      Older houses burn oil for heating the house and water but even most of them have heatpumps installed. New houses usually also have heatpumps or geothermal so direct electric heating is more and more uncommon. Apartment buildings generally all have district heating and even some private homes do.

      Yes it’s expensive but so is everything else too. Our houses are way better insulated than in most places though so that helps a little.

      • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
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        10 months ago

        Do you have a heat pump then? I’m curious if this spike is the moment the heat pump froze and some sort of resistance backup heat kicked on

  • Damage@feddit.it
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    10 months ago

    That is an insane price, and it feels like it should be illegal.

    Further integration at an EU level would allow energy supply to be less influenced by local issues.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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    10 months ago

    Ouch.

    Meanwhile, in Portugal, my peak energy price will be around €.10, with the minimum at around €.06

    To what degree is your house insulated already?

  • BigDickEnergy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    If you’re in a granny cottage then just burn wood instead? Doing this rn and am very happy to go off-grid for ca. 48 hours

    • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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      10 months ago

      I unfortunelately don’t have a fireplace in my house. It was removed when the house was renovated in the 80’s

        • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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          10 months ago

          When I said my house is tiny I truly mean that. I don’t even have space for a medium size house plant let alone a fireplace. The attic was converted into living space and I believe the fireplace used to be where the stairs are now.

          I have a wood burning sauna on a separate building though

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            That sauna sounds like a candidate to hook up to the heat pump if you ask me.

  • MaxHardwood@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    How are you using 21kWh/day heating a small home? Do you have any insulation at all?

    • schnokobaer@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      That’s a perfectly normal number for any home that isn’t very new and perfectly insulated.

      My 37sqm appartment needs approximately 5000 kWh in natural gas per year, 876 kWh last December, so 28 kWh per day on average. The building is admittedly old and not perfectly insulated but it’s also not a log cabin out in the open in Finland, but instead a flat enclosed within 3 other flats in the middle of cosy, never below -8C Germany.

      21 kWh in a log cabin in Finnland actually seemed pretty low to me. It’s sort of obvious OP is using a heat pump and the cabin must really be absolutely tiny.

      • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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        10 months ago

        Why are you measuring natural gas in kWh? How do you even measure that as such?

        • schnokobaer@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          My meter measures it in m2 and my supplier, knowing the exact caloric value of the product they’re selling, tells me in kWh on my bill.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          10 months ago

          Very common in countries that use the metric system (ie literally everywhere except the USA). It’s measured either in kWh or in m^3

          • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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            10 months ago

            Cubic meters (or another similar measure of volume) is what I’d expect. It’s the conversion to an unrelated and theoretical (since it’s not actually being converted to electricity) unit that confuses me. I presume it’s to make it easier to compare electric vs gas heat, but the variable efficiency of burning gas and the existence of heat pumps ruin that.

    • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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      10 months ago

      50kWh and closer to 90kWh on days like this. It’s a log cabin and I’m keeping my root cellar and shed above freezing aswell

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      10 months ago

      Probably because it’s about -35C outside.

      Dude is basically living on the set of The Thing at this point.

    • bastion@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      A tiny heater running all day would do that.

      1kw is a small heater. 0.8kw is a tiny one. 0.8x24 is 19.2. Assuming they have other basic appliances, that’s already more than enough to account for their usage.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        10 months ago

        Since it’s a cold area, they’re likely using a geothermal heat pump, which isn’t affected by air temperature. It uses the ground for heat exchange rather than the air.

          • dan@upvote.au
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            10 months ago

            Definitely. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where it doesn’t get too hot nor too cold, but I do still need heating during winter, and occasionally air conditioning during summer (maybe for 3 weeks or so, sporadically turning on during the day).

            I bought the cheapest heat pump I could find that would work with my existing Ecobee thermostat (a Gree Flexx), and even that one says it’ll work down to -22F with a 1.25 COP

            I’ve got solar panels, which made a heat pump a better choice than a new gas furnace.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    10 months ago

    You need to seriously need to rethink your home. First off, consider getting a radiator heater. These heaters have no fan and are filled with oil to passively heat the air. They are pretty efficient and can heat a small space.

    Next make sure you have blinds covering all windows. Windows loss a lot of heat even if they are double paned.

    In the spring time it may be worth getting some insulation blown in.

  • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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    10 months ago

    Tomorrow is back to normal. Even the 37c/kWh spike hardly registers on the graph compared to today even though that’s still pretty expensive.

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      40c/kWh is a pretty normal price here in Germany…

      Ironically, prices are high, because of too much extremely cheap renewables.

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      10 months ago

      Are you actually paying the daily spot price? Not a flat amount with the utility provider taking the hit? That’s how I know it from any other country, unless you have a specific contract where the user made an informed decision to opt for market rates.

      • Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Spot is quite normal in the Nordics. Over all it’s the cheapest, but some days suck obviously.

        This summer we had days with negative prices. My bill for July was 78 NOK (about $8). Might have been August when I think about it…

      • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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        10 months ago

        Mainly the reason is that many countries do not have hourly capable meters, so calculating the price for each hour is not possible. Flat rate is needed when you just have the cumulative read once a month.

        In Finland the meters communicate automatically once a day, and send the 24h values to grid company. The next generation meters which are now installed can communicate once a hour.

        30% of Finns are on spot.

        • viking@infosec.pub
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          10 months ago

          Oh interesting, never knew that’s a thing. Sounds mostly like a good development to make people more conscious about their consumption.

  • lntl@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    i keep a pile of coal in the cellar for the extra cold days

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      To do what with? Light a coal fire in the living room?

      It doesn’t sound safe even in a proper fireplace.

      • lntl@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        found one whose never felt the heat of a coal stove

        it’s handy to have backup heat source when the power goes out so pipes don’t freeze

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Nope, I am far too young for that.

          I have never heard of anyone that currently has a coal-heated house. I thought it was entirely dead in the developed world. Here these heating options are common district heating, geothermal, direct electric heating, some other kind of heat pump, biofuel (like pellets), and a tiny bit of oil and gas.

          The most popular by far is district heating, after that comes electric heating (which includes electricity used for geothermal heat pumps and other kinds) and then biofuel. Gas and oil are barely visible on a graph.

          I just tried to find a place in my country which sells coal for heating but alas I didn’t succeed. You can of course buy coal but its intended purpose is always grilling or smithing.

  • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    Finland has more than 330 hydro power plants, with total capacity of over 3,100 megawatts in 2022. Hydro accounted for 18% of Finland’s total installed power generation capacity and 22% of total power generation in 2021.

    WTFINLAND

    Hydro-Québec Production main power plants (2020) Total Others (49 hydro, 1 therma) - 13302 MW

    • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Finland is flat, no possiblity in hydro if you don’t have the mountains with water in them. Norway gets all the hydro, and Finland buys it there.

    • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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      10 months ago

      Polyurethane is better insulator, doesn’t absorb moisture and doesn’t require a vapor barrier but is also much more expensive. It’s what I insulated my shed with so that I can let it get cold if need be and will not have moisture problems later.

  • reisub@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    What’s the average price during normal times? In Germany we are usually paying a fixed price, so fluctuations on the market do not reach the customers. However, this price is somewhere between 30 and 40c/kWh.

    • Critical_Insight@feddit.ukOP
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      10 months ago

      On average winter days it’s around 10 to 15c/kWh and in summer like 5 cents or less. Some days in the summer the price literally goes negative.