Last week, Denmark experienced a period of dunkelflaute, as it is called, when it is dark and quiet and thus limited production from solar cells and wind turbines.
Such situations push prices up, and last week, electricity prices hit their highest level since the energy crisis late Thursday afternoon. During the most expensive hour, the price in Denmark reached over 11 kr. per kilowatt-hour – including all taxes, duties and tariffs. This is the highest electricity price in Denmark ever.
- Fortunately, it is extremely rare for the electricity price to go as far as it did on Thursday. In fact, it happens significantly more often that the price hits zero kroner or even becomes negative when taxes and duties are deducted. The generally lower prices are primarily due to the fact that both in Denmark and around Europe we are producing more and more solar and wind energy, which is pushing prices down, says Jack Kristensen, head of function at Andel Energi.
The high electricity prices may not have been so surprising as to make customers reduce their consumption. At Andel, which with 1 million electricity customers is Denmark's largest energy company, the total consumption of private customers fell by more than four percent over the entire day on Thursday, December 12, when compared with consumption the previous Thursday. An unusually large drop, the energy company states in a press release.
- The entire last week was relatively warm for the time of year, so it makes sense to compare consumption over the entire week. If we compare the total consumption of private customers with the electricity price over the week, there is no doubt. The Danes significantly reduced their electricity consumption on Thursday, says Jack Kristensen.
Price-conscious Danes
According to Andel, the reason for the drop in electricity consumption is that the Danes have become significantly more aware of electricity prices since the international energy crisis. Andel Energi's app, where you can follow the electricity price hour by hour, normally has 300,000 active users per month. But on Thursday, Andel Energi's app and website reached almost a quarter of a million visitors in one day.
- Customers are good at keeping up with prices. But it is unusual for electricity prices to affect consumption at the level we experienced on Thursday. The price was of course extraordinarily high in the one hour when the price peaked, and the media coverage has probably also had an effect on consumption. But normally, as electricity customers, we are very flexible and shift our consumption to the cheap hours. We are very far from the situation where the price of electricity was constantly high, as we saw during the energy crisis, says Jack Kristensen.
amp
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
