Uniper Market Insights | Impact of Hitze- and Dunkelflaute on Energy System & more

00:00:00: It was a surprise to see the longest duration being just underneath one week.

00:00:04: But from what Christian has said, The duration is sometimes so long that battery won't help you go through it?

00:00:10: Yeah

00:00:11: I think depends on your personal level of heat acceptance.

00:00:19: Hello and welcome to Unipast Market Insights.

00:00:22: My name is Florian Oberländer And i'm joined by two people today As usual our expert Gregor Pett.

00:00:28: Hi Gregor!

00:00:29: Hi Florian!

00:00:30: And Christian Brose meteorologist team from Unipass, thanks for being with us today.

00:00:36: Thanks for the invite Florian!

00:00:37: Oh you're welcome and it's good to have you because we want to talk about The Unipa Study about so-called dunkelfläut in Dark Doldrum.

00:00:45: but before we come to this Krieger We did a special episode About the Middle East two weeks ago Yes And we just wanted To touch base on that and give people an update.

00:00:55: What is the current status?

00:00:56: There is an agreement to negotiate a peace agreement right now and there's certain timeline set for that.

00:01:01: Has relaxed the markets quite, quite a bit.

00:01:04: so prices have come down not quite to the levels before the war started.

00:01:07: What we can see already is problems around these negotiations and the ceasefires are frequently breached then from both sides, they accuse each other.

00:01:17: there multiple parties involved including Israel and Lebanon.

00:01:21: so what you can now that it's a straight forward process but also at risk.

00:01:27: We still hope that will calm down.

00:01:31: We can still see risk priced in into prices.

00:01:35: They have come down, but it's not a given at this point.

00:01:38: something that I wanted to ask you about as Iran is proposing within the negotiation process some fees from passing through the Straits of Hormuz and what is behind there?

00:01:49: They've been very clear they want that.

00:01:51: It's also source-of revenue for them which off course need money.

00:01:56: But it's another source of conflict.

00:01:58: Of course, it could increase prices so the other countries don't necessarily like that but also when they would be changed or removed

00:02:07: etc.,

00:02:07: It is a constant source of discussion and conflicts.

00:02:11: So there are destabilising elements And we can only hope that stable solution will be found That these frictions overcome.

00:02:20: Yeah absolutely Something.

00:02:21: we'll monitor closely Moving on from this, and then we will pick that up after the summer break again hopefully with good solutions there.

00:02:31: Christian Brose is our guest today about a topic Dunkelflout in Dark Doldrum.

00:02:37: maybe before we start to dive into the topic can you introduce yourself?

00:02:42: So Florian so I joined The Company in two thousand eight After being with private weather service in Germany for four years.

00:02:50: where did some forecast for the media, some agricultural forecasting.

00:02:55: By that time I was joining we had colleagues in Sweden already but not on the continent so it's also first one there and built up metrology services of trading and asset optimization.

00:03:05: they are meanwhile become a team lead.

00:03:07: we got one hydrologist then other metrologists in the team Jess was your guest couple weeks ago.

00:03:15: We're providing anything which is related to weather and climate, all our internal customers here at Unipo.

00:03:20: Absolutely interesting topics!

00:03:22: And if you missed it go back.

00:03:24: I think two months ago around that special episode with Jess Torpe who also talked about El Nino.

00:03:31: a lot of good stuff so really insightful.

00:03:34: It was a great one.

00:03:34: You are here

00:03:36: for the UNIPER study on the Dunkle Flauter.

00:03:38: we kind wanted take closer look because last year Renewable generation was around forty six percent in Germany.

00:03:47: And of course fluctuation within the grid system is then more given than without renewables.

00:03:52: before we dive into the numbers, what does a dark doldrum that don't flow to?

00:03:57: precisely for people who haven't heard it?

00:04:00: Sure It's a period where up the generation Of wind is lower than a certain threshold The installed capacity and it coincides with low generation from solar PV Below that threshold.

00:04:13: you can argue.

00:04:14: That threshold we took ten percent of the installed capacity as they study by The German Weather Service did.

00:04:20: others took fifteen.

00:04:22: You go down to five if you can't argue, but I think it's fair If you played openly To go for it.

00:04:28: so you're looking at single hour generation from both sources and your checking is It less than this threshold or not?

00:04:34: Yes So don't give out a criteria met.

00:04:37: in our study.

00:04:38: We looked at the moving average over six hours to define market-relevant dark doldrum events.

00:04:46: I mean, the study was just converted for Germany at this point.

00:04:50: Is there a general problem with other countries as well?

00:04:54: Yes it is indeed.

00:04:56: It's an issue of all countries in which renewable production has a large share.

00:05:01: We see that the particular problem with Dunkelflute is that solar PV and winds are low at the same time.

00:05:10: And every system that has this feature where any of those effects or both effects have an influence will have that problem, including local phenomena.

00:05:19: when you've got certain parts of a country... ...of a system with these imbalances occur.

00:05:25: so it's definitely an issue across the entire world but also close to home in Europe Germany and neighbouring countries.

00:05:32: Okay

00:05:33: I understood.

00:05:34: So what were their findings after study?

00:05:37: Main findings were it occurs more frequently than I personally thought.

00:05:40: It would.

00:05:41: that's occurring a couple of times or few times every month in winter at least.

00:05:46: the mean duration Depending on the approach you take if you're looking at single hours, or moving averages between fourteen and seventeen hours That was quite long already seems to be shifting to the longer side with climate change And also something which i thought is quite interesting it makes sense from a meteorological perspective but I guess we can touch upon that later if you want to.

00:06:09: It was a surprise to see the longest duration being just underneath one week at a hundred and sixty-one hours, it's pretty long.

00:06:18: well In fact its something which occurs regularly and frequently.

00:06:22: Its not always necessarily problem for energy market but should plan with it.

00:06:27: You shouldn't neglect or say this is nothing we need take care about.

00:06:31: as you said Gregor in an energy system which becomes intermittent due to intermittent generation.

00:06:38: You can't steer PV and wind, you should think about it

00:06:43: beforehand.".

00:06:43: Yeah absolutely!

00:06:44: And I looked at the numbers as well.

00:06:45: this said one hundred sixty-one was the longest hours.

00:06:49: that is just to give people out there an impression of what we're talking about.

00:06:54: last ten years a total of one thousand four hundred thirty five dark door rooms lasting more than ten hours occurred.

00:07:01: That's on average every third day, of course you cannot say that it happens every three days.

00:07:06: One hundred forty-four on average per year over the last ten

00:07:10: years.

00:07:10: So exactly quite a number?

00:07:12: Yeah absolutely!

00:07:14: What actually happens with energy system?

00:07:16: what is something we have to consider when talking about security or supply?

00:07:20: When solar radiation is low and we have low PV production... ...when wind is low there will be low wind production.

00:07:28: What you need in that situation is of course something to balance.

00:07:31: So, a generation can be steered – flexible generations and batteries.

00:07:37: but from what Christian has said we see the duration sometimes so long it won't help us go through that even if not enough batteries will cover all of them.

00:07:52: It would also not be economic then build batteries available for all these situations, so that doesn't work.

00:08:00: So we need a generation who is able to cover this.

00:08:04: Hydro is an excellent source of hydropower but we don't have enough hydropowers.

00:08:11: in Germany and also Europe with the exception of Austria-Switzerland they are blessed a lot of hydro and, of course, Sweden.

00:08:18: But in Germany we don't have enough to balance so we need fossil generation.

00:08:23: We've decided to phase out coal So the remaining coal plants Have limited capabilities To cover all that?

00:08:29: We already phased out nuclear.

00:08:32: What remains is gas-fired generation.

00:08:34: And this what also The government has taken into account In the law That it's hopefully coming Into effect and being implemented very quickly where we look at increasing gas fire generation for in particular these situations, so definitely need that.

00:08:52: When we talk about dark door rooms can you say this is more the norm than it's an exception?

00:08:59: I would say its part of it.

00:09:02: One thing, and I think that it's a good point Eurasia Florian with climate change what we have been observing throughout the past fifteen years.

00:09:10: I would say is whether becomes more stationary.

00:09:13: so in old days you will have periods of high pressure taking turns low pressures passing get wind again And duration.

00:09:21: such block period increasing With this should take closer look at that.

00:09:27: blocking height can be position.

00:09:30: You're not underneath it, but you are at the edge.

00:09:32: Then you do have wind.

00:09:33: so that doesn't necessarily mean there's no wind But risk is increasing.

00:09:38: It's a standard pattern which occurs for example in summer almost every night because of low winds Nice weather over day and sun during nights.

00:09:47: we don't.

00:09:48: We will come to this in a second if I mention the so-called Hitzelflute Which was also a new term.

00:09:55: Thankyou very much for giving us some insight on our study.

00:09:58: I will link the study that can be found on our website as well here.

00:10:04: And we come to a question from one of our trainees, Lisa who has also questions about dark doll rooms and Lisa wants another following.

00:10:14: Hi

00:10:14: my name is Lisa Weising and i'm a trainee

00:10:16: at the Sustainability Strategy Department.

00:10:19: My Question Is

00:10:21: How Precise Can A Dark Doll

00:10:22: Room Before

00:10:23: Cast It?

00:10:25: See, every morning we are starting with analyzing global weather models.

00:10:29: All of them that are available for the next two weeks at least.

00:10:33: usually you can identify patterns where blocking high is included in a position it will affect German markets or European markets.

00:10:42: roughly seven to ten days beforehand depends on season and flow pattern.

00:10:48: but I think thats first guess.

00:10:50: And by five days ahead, you should be able to forecast it relatively precisely and say okay we're running into problems or not.

00:10:57: Please take

00:10:58: action.".

00:10:59: Then you probably have very thankful traders that can use

00:11:03: the information?

00:11:03: That's part of a job!

00:11:04: It is good collaboration.

00:11:06: they take their actions but need to identify when its time to do so.

00:11:12: We bridged our topic with another one.

00:11:15: The question comes from the dual student.

00:11:18: Michael wants to know.

00:11:21: Hi, my name's Michael and I'm a dual student.

00:11:23: And My question is what impact do extreme weather conditions have under the energy markets in summer?

00:11:29: Well first of all In Summer The power demand has increased over the past years because of growing installation of private and also business air conditioning.

00:11:39: That so that's effect when we're getting into heat waves more frequently.

00:11:43: So people try to cope with that.

00:11:45: So on one hand side We are raising the demand.

00:11:49: I'm taking up your example of hydropower generation Gregor, which was an excellent one.

00:11:54: Just think about a dry winter or a winter with less snow than usual and then you're running into low river levels during summer.

00:12:01: Less water in the rivers means it's heating up more easily.

00:12:06: And take for instance the nuclear power plants just as last week when we had outages there because water in the rivers was too warm to effectively cool down the plants and they were also running into environmental issues, limitations there so that can add up.

00:12:25: And then you're losing generation capacity when your demand is increasing.

00:12:29: That's one example.

00:12:30: The heat itself is stressful for the hardware.

00:12:32: So if it's a power cable If its the power plant itself where it's too hot You do have of course also flooding risk something people tend to forget, but hot air can take much more moisture.

00:12:48: So your severe weather events ending any heat period are becoming more severe as well.

00:12:54: and then you

00:12:58: And I think it's fair to mention as well that especially during the summer period, you know a lot of power plants are on maintenance and not available.

00:13:06: Yeah!

00:13:06: That is usual maintenance per-period.

00:13:10: The maintenance schedules will have to adapt those situations into summer peaks which are frequent in other countries with huge share of air conditioning.

00:13:20: so we see this already.

00:13:22: So parts for US for example needs to be taken into account also that there are plants, like nuclear plants in France... ...that suffer from hot water.

00:13:33: When the water becomes too warm they can't use it for cooling and this could cause a problem as well of nuclear availability in summer.

00:13:41: Christian what's behind so-called hits the flout?

00:13:45: What does that mean?

00:13:47: It is a situation where you have your blocking high in summer So you're losing wind.

00:13:52: That's the flouter part, the doldrum Heat comes up very effectively underneath the high pressure system in summer, especially when you got some help of maybe a Spanish low-pressure system which is then pushing all the hot air from the Sahara into central Europe.

00:14:07: And it's interrupted by solar during day – that's good part about it but heat stays and demand increases.

00:14:19: Well I think we covered Theme questions, but of course we cannot let you go without having a little bit of outlook on the upcoming summer vacation for The ones that haven't booked location yet.

00:14:34: What would be your recommendation?

00:14:36: what other destinations You can still go to or what is too warm or too rainy?

00:14:40: Yeah

00:14:40: I think it depends on your personal level Of heat acceptance.

00:14:44: and if you're fine with heat But you want good weather you'll go to Spain.

00:14:47: you go to Ibiza Mallorca Sardinia whatever.

00:14:51: That area seems to me quite okay, our southwestern Mediterranean area.

00:14:56: For me personally that would be much too hot.

00:14:58: I would prefer Sweden but you have to accept some rain at times.

00:15:01: we will see what... I kept

00:15:02: some days open so i would be able to adapt whatever weather occurs.

00:15:06: if you know

00:15:07: well We're going take a summer break anyways now So we'll back with another show in the fall time.

00:15:14: Thankyou very much for covering topics today Very insightful and

00:15:18: thanks for the invite

00:15:20: anytime and they got.

00:15:21: thanks for your answers as usual.

00:15:23: Thank you very much!

00:15:24: To you out there, thankyou very much for watching or listening.

00:15:27: hope to tune in next time again.

00:15:28: until then bye.