cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27655856
Europe’s booming solar generation is overwhelming the region’s grids, sending power prices slumping far below zero.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27655856
Europe’s booming solar generation is overwhelming the region’s grids, sending power prices slumping far below zero.
Where ate all the “solar is too complicated for s grid!!” people now?
Super good news.
Don’t worry just wait until, checks notes, the sun goes to bed at night. What then France? How will your solar work in clouds? Check and mate.
We concentrated so much on solar energy we completely forgot moon energy, and now, we must pay for that oversight.
Well, mixed news as others have mentioned. Of course it is great how much solar is installed. But at least in Germany, new installation will require a “killswitch” which disconnects the system in cases where the price goes negative/the grid is overloaded. So the grid/storage cannot really handle renewables yet. On the brightside, this only applies if you are not able to dynamically adjust your system. So with a modern system you can just charge your battery or car instead.
Having zero/negative prices incentivizes programs to incentivize consumers to use energy storage to get cheaper prices. Anyone who uses AC/heaters has at least their residence as a thermal battery and people can do things like shift when they do energy intensive activities as well.
Also, if you want enough power generation to power through the evening, then having excess generation during the peak generation hours/days is the expectation. When building new solar/wind is less than half the price of building any other form of energy production (even before considering the externalities of most of those other forms of energy production), its still cheaper to “overbuild” by a factor of two to reduce the need for other sources of power and provides the expectation of excess power needed to justify building storage.
Maybe… It’s good that peak production is so high, but there isn’t enough storage to take real advantage of it yet. And even if you’re not paying for power generation you still need to maintain power infrastructure. Maintenance isn’t free.
No, it’s still good news despite new problems that may arise.
The negative price drop is likely not good - long run. That’s the thing I’m talking about. If you can’t sell electricity you can’t maintain infrastructure. That will likely correct over time.