Agreed. The only nationwide incentive that drives negative prices in the US is the wind Production Tax Credit. It's paid per MWh generated, regardless of market

Agreed. The only nationwide incentive that drives negative prices in the US is the wind Production Tax Credit. It's paid per MWh generated, regardless of market price at the time. The solar Investment Tax Credit incentivizes construction, not generation, so there's no incentive for selling solar MWh at negative prices -- though they can go arbitrarily close to zero. If the wind PTC were to be renewed in the future, it could be structured so as to avoid negative-pricing incentives. Instead of $N dollars per megawatt hour, it could be something more like "up to $N dollars per megawatt hour, where $N <= the current average price paid to all generators." At a cap of $23 and current market price of $10, the wind generator would get $10 of tax credit per MWh. At a current market price of $35 the wind generator would get the full $23. State and local incentives would also need similar conditionals to eliminate all negative pricing incentives. IMO a change like this would take a lot of wind out of the sails of fossil generators decrying "irrational and unfair" renewable tax credits. But it would not actually solve the overarching problem of unprofitability. The things mostly killing profitability for threatened fossil plants are lower price spikes and lower median prices. Ensuring slightly-above-zero prices instead of negative prices won't save them.