See here for a detailed explanation: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-po

See here for a detailed explanation: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-... Here's an excerpt: > There are several reasons why conventional power station operators, which are either losing money or at least losing profit during times of negative prices, keep their plants running (See study by Energy Brainpool, page 4-5 and the 2016 results from Consentec). They can be technical, for example the power plant can be too inflexible to change its output, or the ramping or costs for shutting down and starting up can be too expensive. Another reason for keeping the plant running can be the obligation to provide contracted balancing power to keep the grid stable or provide re-dispatch power. Alternatively, it may be that a certain production has to be kept up to provide heat for a town household heating network. Those plant operators which have already sold their power at the longer term futures market face no extra costs when they let their units run – they are merely losing the profit that they could make by buying cheap power to supply their customers instead of producing their own.