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.
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.