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I disagree that it’s bad news. It gives additional incentives for consumers to get battery systems to go with their solar. I live in the UK where prices go neg

I disagree that it’s bad news. It gives additional incentives for consumers to get battery systems to go with their solar. I live in the UK where prices go negative during periods of high wind/low demand. There are also times where demand is so high that the electricity companies will pay a big premium for consumers who cut their consumption for a couple of hours, or who sell back to the grid, to avoid having to start up reserve coal-fired power stations. I got batteries for my solar without any thought of them being very useful in winter, but in fact they are. I automatically force-charge when prices go negative and when the grid announces there is going to be an emergency need for power (usually a few hours notice), I’ll force charge and then force discharge during the time of need. https://octopus.energy/blog/farewell-saving-sessions-wrap-up/ https://octopus.energy/blog/farewell-saving-sessions-wrap-up...

Gibbon1 2y ago
My standard response to negative energy prices is, it's oh noes for energy suppliers and oh yes baby for industrial users. A medium electric arc furnace consumes 60MW. 17 of those can draw a GW.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  There's a whole industrial technology -- bulk resistive heat storage -- that's popping up to deal with intermittent low or negative power prices. Temperatures as high as 1800 C can be stored in resistively heated refractory materials, then used to displace fossil fuel combustion in various industrial processes. The stored energy/mass and energy/cost in such materials can be very high.
  - Gibbon1 2y ago
    Yeah if you're calcining concrete clinker you'll happily use resistive heating if electricity is cheaper than nat gas. I like to bitch about people that think the free market solves everything but oh noes the price of electricity is negative is one thing I think the free market can totally solve.
- deleted 2y ago
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Gibbon1 2y ago

My standard response to negative energy prices is, it's oh noes for energy suppliers and oh yes baby for industrial users. A medium electric arc furnace consumes 60MW. 17 of those can draw a GW.

pfdietz 2y ago
There's a whole industrial technology -- bulk resistive heat storage -- that's popping up to deal with intermittent low or negative power prices. Temperatures as high as 1800 C can be stored in resistively heated refractory materials, then used to displace fossil fuel combustion in various industrial processes. The stored energy/mass and energy/cost in such materials can be very high.
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  Yeah if you're calcining concrete clinker you'll happily use resistive heating if electricity is cheaper than nat gas. I like to bitch about people that think the free market solves everything but oh noes the price of electricity is negative is one thing I think the free market can totally solve.
deleted 2y ago
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