re: What are utility produced externalities by wind generated electricity? What is are utility customer externalities by wind generated electricity?
One externality in any case --unit consumption and production-- presumably is cost avoidance, or benefit, of foregone fossil fueled output in terms of operating expenses, emissions, and waste. Another, arguably, is "spillover" in the first instance by creation of wind generators and transmission networks which make possible purchase of perishable, surplus electricity by remote customers.
What the article does not explain is change, if any, in retail prices per unit distributed to utility customers in the utility's local service area or customers buying the remote utility's "premium" output. What methods, if any, do EU regulators employ to assure utility customers benefit by wholesale trading in the rates paid per unit?
Storm Moving on Spain's Windmills to Slam Power Price | Bloomberg | 5 Feb 2009
Wind has become a bigger factor in Germany and Spain because they both subsidize rates for the renewable energy and give producers preference to sell in wholesale markets. Utilities that acquire power, from Essen-based RWE AG in Germany to Union Fenosa SA in Madrid, must buy any available wind and solar power before tapping fossil-fuel plants.... CIMD SA, a Madrid-based broker, offered yesterday to buy power for working days next week at no more than 37 euros a megawatt-hour, one of its brokers said. That's 11 percent below this week's average price. A megawatt-hour supplies about 1,500 Spanish homes for 60 minutes.... Wind power in Spain is a relatively high-margin business. Generators get paid a premium for wind energy, money on top of the fixed price set by the wholesale "pool" market that's paid to all kinds of plants -- from coal and oil to gas or nuclear. The premium is as much as twice the rate of conventional power traded on the pool exchange.
CIMD SA, a Madrid-based broker, offered yesterday to buy power for working days next week at no more than 37 euros a megawatt-hour, one of its brokers said. That's 11 percent below this week's average price. A megawatt-hour supplies about 1,500 Spanish homes for 60 minutes....
Wind power in Spain is a relatively high-margin business. Generators get paid a premium for wind energy, money on top of the fixed price set by the wholesale "pool" market that's paid to all kinds of plants -- from coal and oil to gas or nuclear.
The premium is as much as twice the rate of conventional power traded on the pool exchange.
Would you agree then that retail price per unit (kWh) is fixed by regulators by EU nation-state, i.e. "regulated" as opposed to "deregulated" profit potential of a utility, ergo utility holding company.
I flatter myself in believing that you recall my interest in legitimate price fixing across the US.
But you may have investigated what legal mechanisms EU legislature and judiciary have enacted to enforce universal prix fixe or not.
If you are interested in practicable methods of "nationalizing" commercial markets. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
