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Hopefully they'll introduce caps that take power costs to a minimum of zero. I say this with some experience - here in Northern Ireland we're the world leaders

Hopefully they'll introduce caps that take power costs to a minimum of zero. I say this with some experience - here in Northern Ireland we're the world leaders in terribly thought out (and utterly stupid) energy policies, and the economic effects of them. (Our government recently collapsed, primarily due to a dispute over a programme that saw farmers paid ~£1.12 for every £1 of biomass energy they consumed, with no upper cap. Needless to say, there are empty barns in the middle of nowhere at 30°C inside right now causing a lot of pollution and "making" their owners a fortune. As a result of how much it has cost and is projected to, a lot of spending has just been cancelled, including badly needed hospitals). So yeah, clean energy is great, when it's combined with sane policy.

runeks 9y ago
Something having a positive price means it has value. Something having a negative price means getting rid of it has value. A positive price signals that there’s a cost to consume something. A negative price signals that there’s a cost to not consume something.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Correct. Doesn't seem to apply for the biomass case though
- headmelted 9y ago
  Is that the case here, though? I didn't directly infer from the article that there was a cost to not expending the energy being held in the grid (i.e. does the grid need to expel that excess?). If it needs to expel the excess to consumers, then absolutely the negative pricing makes perfect sense, but I got the impression that this was more a fortuitous set of variables than an intended outcome.
aoeusnth1 9y ago
Why do you think negative prices would have bad side effects? Why would a cap improve efficiency?
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
What they need is batteries that can store the energy until it can be sold at a higher price. Tesla built a giant battery station for Australia I believe. Negative prices make sense as they need people to use the electricity, but encouraging people to waste energy by paying them to do so is not good environmental policy. Would be more efficient, profitable, and greener to store the energy until it's needed.
- headmelted 9y ago
  "encouraging people to waste energy by paying them to do so is not good environmental policy." Exactly.
Dylan16807 9y ago
There's nothing like that to worry about here. The prices can't stay negative for more than a few hours or big plants would shut down and get rid of the excess production. The average is always going to be quite positive. And the relevant wind-power incentives are on the production side, which doesn't lead to any deliberate waste.
ohthehugemanate 9y ago
Ok, that's a great policy story. Germany works hard, though. After all, this is the country that responded to a climate catastrophe by banning their only zero emissions source of baseload power! The story behind the negative power price is a great example. This is some delightful spin by the NYT on what is an awful situation here in the country. The economist[1] has a great little explanation about how the Energiewende fucks Germans into paying more per kWh, earning lower profit per kWh , and producing more CO2 per kWh, all at once. And it takes tax money away from productive uses, to boot! It's not often that a single piece of law can screw EVERYONE. But that's German ingenuity! [1] https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-10 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/e...

runeks 9y ago

Something having a positive price means it has value. Something having a negative price means getting rid of it has value. A positive price signals that there’s a cost to consume something. A negative price signals that there’s a cost to not consume something.

raverbashing 9y ago
Correct. Doesn't seem to apply for the biomass case though
headmelted 9y ago
Is that the case here, though? I didn't directly infer from the article that there was a cost to not expending the energy being held in the grid (i.e. does the grid need to expel that excess?). If it needs to expel the excess to consumers, then absolutely the negative pricing makes perfect sense, but I got the impression that this was more a fortuitous set of variables than an intended outcome.

aoeusnth1 9y ago

Why do you think negative prices would have bad side effects? Why would a cap improve efficiency?

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

What they need is batteries that can store the energy until it can be sold at a higher price. Tesla built a giant battery station for Australia I believe. Negative prices make sense as they need people to use the electricity, but encouraging people to waste energy by paying them to do so is not good environmental policy. Would be more efficient, profitable, and greener to store the energy until it's needed.

headmelted 9y ago
"encouraging people to waste energy by paying them to do so is not good environmental policy." Exactly.

Dylan16807 9y ago

There's nothing like that to worry about here. The prices can't stay negative for more than a few hours or big plants would shut down and get rid of the excess production. The average is always going to be quite positive. And the relevant wind-power incentives are on the production side, which doesn't lead to any deliberate waste.

ohthehugemanate 9y ago

Ok, that's a great policy story. Germany works hard, though. After all, this is the country that responded to a climate catastrophe by banning their only zero emissions source of baseload power! The story behind the negative power price is a great example. This is some delightful spin by the NYT on what is an awful situation here in the country. The economist[1] has a great little explanation about how the Energiewende fucks Germans into paying more per kWh, earning lower profit per kWh , and producing more CO2 per kWh, all at once. And it takes tax money away from productive uses, to boot! It's not often that a single piece of law can screw EVERYONE. But that's German ingenuity! [1] https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-10 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/e...