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Germany Has Too Many Solar Panels, and It's Pushed Energy Prices Negative
(markets.businessinsider.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Why Are they talking like it's a bad thing?
Because it is a bad thing for the financial interests that Business Insider serves.
Germany's political economic system is capitalist. In order for that type of system to exist there must be a surplus that can be extracted in the form of profit. If the cost of energy is negative (or even low) there is no surplus profit and thus the system falls apart.
this is why the current gov in sweden is trying to run wind mills into the ground. got rid of the solar panel subsidiary. and has been campaigning hard to building nuclear power plants under the guise of 'clean and stable energy that can be produced on demand.' - and it will somehow lower electricity prices despite the country producing a surplus and prices remain high because the surplus is sold to the rest of europe at a premium and to increase demand locally and thus prices for a double tap on the market.
but sure. let's build more nuclear. that will totally fix the energy prices and satiate demand by relying on imported fuel based power instead of free and infinite power produced by nature itself. i'm sure.
In isolation, it's very obviously a bad thing, because it makes solar less profitable and might slow down the switch to renewables.
In a wider context, it can still be seen as a god thing as it means there has been a significant pivot to solar already and luckily it's also a very solvable problem. There just needs to be more energy storage.
Won't energy storage help drive prices back up too?
I guess that depends. If the costs to invest in storage is cheaper long term than losing money from excess energy, then energy companies would lose less money and thus could offer cheaper prices. But it would definitely help decrease or get rid of negative prices.
It's a sign of a grid stability issue. A power grid needs to balance input, output and losses. An imbalance in either direction is bad.
A negative price means the grid is worried about a collapse. They are willing to pay sinks to come online NOW, or for production to go offline.
The solution isn't less renewables however! It's more storage, and better smarts on the grid. Most grids are poorly designed for renewables, and their loads characteristics. That needs to change rapidly.