Thanks for giving us a bank’s perspective, Business Insider.
OH NO! IT’S WORKING! Someone think of the power companies!
My rural electric coop limits the amount they will pay for end user generated solar power per month. They will never let the bill zero out or be negative.
As long as that means there’s a minimum fee that’s going to maintain the grid, I think I’m okay with electric bills not going negative.
I was worried when Germany shut down their nuclear reactors but it’s great news to hear they’re embracing solar hard
“people are no longer paying for things they don’t need! this is a disaster!”
Negative pricing during peak solar hours has also been happening in California. Longer-term negative pricing has been happening for more than a decade in the Columbia River basin, due to high wind (and wind subsidies per MWh) and high hydroelectric flows.
It’s pretty simple. Negative pricing creates a strong incentive for energy storage. We need more energy storage to support more renewable energy. This was inevitable. I’d love to see a future where people driving their EVs get a pop-up alert: FREE CHARGING AVAILABLE FOR THE NEXT 35 minutes. And the charging network gets paid to take up excess load.
I’d like a future where EV’s aren’t a part of it and worrying about such frivolities as “personal transportation” is a foreign concept.
All of transportation cannot be shared or multi-passenger because some trips are to places where nobody else is going. Perhaps in dense cities, which will take at least 50 years to rebuild in a walkable way in the US. But people will still want to enjoy natural places - lakes, rivers, mountains, deserts, forests, and snow, and there won’t always be rails built to access those places. Electric mountain bikes with a 500 mile range maybe? Personal transportation will always be around.
Ok but if you are in the middle of nature where is this mythical charging station that is going to ping your cell-phone that you should charge your bike in the next 35 minutes? It better not be in the national park you are visiting. I’d also say that in America, removing cars from our national parks and replacing them with rail would be a huge boost to accessibility, and preservation. Hiking/biking trails can and should still exist, but in that world Electric Cars have no place.
There already aren’t gas stations in these remote locations. Why would there need to be EV chargers??
The thought of having rail service small campsites is comical.
If we did move to a world where cities are dense enough that public transit did replace cars for most people, cars would still be a viable rental for when leaving the city.
When nuclear power was first adopted, it was championed as being “too cheap to meter”.
That was never going to happen, and society will allways need people maintaining power infrastructure.
So there should be two charges on your power bill, one for power usage and a static one for use of power infrastructure.
Can’t they sell the surplus to neighbouring countries?
In fact we have to pay the neighboring countries to take the excess power in order to lighten the load on the grid. Switzerland and Austria will then use the power to pump up water to store the energy.
In fact we have to pay the neighboring countries to take the excess power in order to lighten the load on the grid. Switzerland and Austria will then use the power to pump up water to store the energy.
That sounds like a good problem to have.
Next step is get those power storage systems in to take advantage of negative pricingBuy this battery, and the power company will pay you to charge it. Problem?
Sell it to other EU countries. Why is this so hard?
This is happening, to a degree, in most of Europe. Storage is the answer as described in the article. Unfortunately politics are not proactive, you need to break the system before something happens… and now the system is broken, yeah!!!
this is like a bitcoin miner’s wet dream.
Why is Germany building a ton of coal plants then?
We’re not.
Bringing back online != Building a ton
Negative pricing just means power isn’t needed or wanted at that time of day. During the winter when it’s not sunny, power will still be needed.
Does solar in summer meet their energy demands? I was under the impression that it didn’t.
