Alex, The rational is simple and very Danish. A wide natural gas network was constructed in the 80’ties. In order for the system to be paid back it was mandatory to take natural gas in all areas with the gas network. Local communities should enforce this – but they didn’t. Deficit rose. Consequently a high tax was put on oil, which was reflected on gas becoming attractive. We talked of a “shadow tax” on natural gas. Today the gas network has still deficit – but is recovering. The “nice” tax comes in handy and has been partly directed into environmental taxes.
Utilities do not pay the tax. Hence electricity prices from power producers (large and small) are rather low and related to the free Nordpool market – until delivered to the consumer. A rather big tax is laid on the electricity consumption and this is supplemented by grid transport costs and “Public Service Obligations” (PSO) = TAX. Only heavy process industry has a straight scheme. They pay a little tax on the fuel going to the processes regardless of the process being electricity or process heat. The “funny” thing is, what happens to their surplus energy after the processes. The low temperature heat could be wisely used in district heating schemes but this is prohibited by the large energy tax going on the surplus heat. Hence the energy is wasted! You now have a “clear” view of the distorting mechanisms. A very simple way of dealing with it, would be to rely only on tax on the fuel – both for heating and electric purposes – a tax that should only reflect environmental matters. This tax needs to be the same all over Europe – otherwise the system will not work. Sounds easy? Med venlig hilsen/Best regards Nils Peter Astrupgaard From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alex English Sent: 30. juli 2012 00:25 To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification Subject: [Spam] Re: [Gasification] Potential Gasification Winner? Thomas, Thanks for the explanation. Is it felt that the taxes on energy there are unevenly or unreasonably applied? What would be the rational for NG prices to be so proportionally high? Is this not significantly different than all the rest of the EU? Historical price patterns have changed here too with NG costing a small fraction of heating oil (and of your NG). Two societies here; the piped and the un-piped. Regards, Alex On 29/07/2012 1:45 PM, Thomas Koch wrote: Alex You are right – my explanatiion is not very clear. In Denmark the electricity price that a producer can sell at varies between 4 and 10 €c/kWh – most of the time – 5-7 €c/kWh. On top of that is a green premium to guaranteed price. For gasifiers it is 10 €c/kWh – 74,5 øre/kWh - as far as I remember. The comsumer pays aprox 30 €c/kWh. If you use natural gas you pay approx. 1,2 €/m3 ~ 11-12 €c/kWh + plus cost of gas furnace. In this market where a gasifier can sell electricity for 100 €/MWh and heat at 70-80-90 €/MWh (due to the losses in the transmission grid there are no money to pay the extra investment from a biomass boiler to a biomass gasifier. If you also take in account that the char losses on tha gasifier can be 4-10 times higher than for a boiler you end up at a loss. This calculations can be different for different locations – eg. in Italy there has been extremely high green premiums (250-300 €/MWh) for a period. But it does not really help if the technology developers does not trust the Italian politicians. Did that help you? Best regards Thomas Fra: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] På vegne af Alex English Sendt: 29. juli 2012 19:21 Til: [email protected] Emne: Re: [Gasification] Potential Gasification Winner? Thomas, I don't understand your comment. Could you describe how the price of heat and electricity have changed to make "heat more expensive than electricity". Thanks, Alex English On 29/07/2012 8:23 AM, Thomas Koch wrote: But - now heat is more expensive than electricity – and the cost level we have reached is 2-10 times the market price. And of course none of the plants are no where near a commercial product (apart from one that is close to – but 2-4 times too expensive) because the investors are looking for projects that have a chance of being competitive with in 2-10 years. _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
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