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During the day, the production from RES almost equals that of Kozloduy NPP
A wave of negative electricity prices also appeared in Bulgaria on the “Day Ahead” platform of the stock exchange. On Monday between 2 and 3 p.m., 1 megawatt hour cost minus 2 cents. That is, producers have paid to have 3,462 megawatt hours bought for them. In the sunny hours during the day, there were zero prices and one from 6 cents.
The average for the day on April 1 was BGN 62.72 per megawatt hour. This is ten times less than the levels of BGN 800 two years ago.
In our country, the most serious price reduction – down to minus BGN 3.52 per megawatt hour – was on Sunday between 12 and 1 pm. And prices below zero on that day were between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Across Europe, with the exception of Poland and Italy, prices on Monday were low, between 20 and 35 euros, and in Spain and Portugal – 3 euros.
The PV boom of 2000 megawatts in the last 2 years, as well as joining the European trading system, lead to a large supply of electricity and a collapse in prices.
The reason for this is also the lack of storage facilities. The largest battery – PAVETS “Chaira”, has not yet been restored. On March 29, this forced the dispatchers of the Electricity System Operator to limit by 20% the production of current from renewable energy sources between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The executive director of the system operator, Angelin Tsachev, warned about such a practice as early as February. However, he linked the electricity surpluses in the past week to the Catholic Easter and reduced consumption in Europe.
The report of the Electricity System Operator as of 2 p.m. on April 1 shows that the share of solar energy in Bulgaria was 36.20%, nuclear energy – 43.12%. The generators were loaded at 7.46%, in fact only some units in the state-owned TPP “Maritsa-Istok 2” were working, even the American “AES Maritsa-Istok 1” was stopped, although it has a long-term contract with NEK. The big guys didn’t work either.
The system load was 3,445.72 megawatts, of which at that hour about 1,000 megawatts were for export to all neighbors.
There are no negative prices for Tuesday, because with the end of the holiday in Western Europe, consumption also increases.
Tsachev expects a more serious normalization of the electricity situation from next month after the latest changes in the energy law. Currently, manufacturers do not follow their stated schedules, according to which they must put into the system as much electricity as their customers consume. Removing the price ceiling for balancing, as envisaged by the changes, will have a disciplining effect, the head of the ESO believes.
