Re:Sweden Gov Announces 'Massive Expansion' of Nuclear Energy
by bjourne on Friday November 17, 2023 @04:32PM
(#38310695)
Why wouldn't price fluctuations influence consumer behavior?
Electricity is purchased in bulk in Nord Pool whose prices fluctuate
by the hour. Consumers, who account for 58% of production, certainly
regulate their consumption based on prices. Even industries do and
there have been several high-profile examples of paper mills reducing
their production due to high electricity costs. Wind availability and
temperature is what determines electricity prices, neither of which is
particularly hard to predict.
Regarding your second point, this is handled via imports and exports and standby capacity. The Nordic power grid is getting denser which reduces the chances of catastrophic failure. While the Swedish right-wing press has predicted brownouts and "electricity ransoning" ever since the right-wing party made more nuclear part of their election platform back in 2020 (what a coincidence...), those dire predictions has not come true.
And this leads to the second point: There needs to be enough of available balancing power to be able to handle even the worst such deviation to keep the balance, as otherwise a breakdown of the whole system can happen, which would take days to restore from (yea, you can do emergency operations like closing down industries or apartment areas to keep the system from breaking down, but that in itself can have huge economic consequences if nothing else).