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"pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility CHARGES you money when you feed solar

"pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility CHARGES you money when you feed solar energy to the grid? That sounds... bizarre?

dtech 2y ago
When there is a lot of wind and sun simultaneously there is effectively too much electricity supply on the net, and day-ahead prices drop negative. This is partially fueled by flat subsidies per unit produced (has been fixed for a while for new installations), so producing when there's oversupply can still be profitable. Also most households have a flat energy rate and can amortize their energy usage over the year, so they will always keep their solar panels on even if the energy is less than worthless. US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.
pierot 2y ago
Yes, prices can go negative if you have a dynamic energy contract.
Ekaros 2y ago
Purchasers want to make margin on anything. So they charge this on the seller and then on buyer. Also with how markets work it is not like there isn't risks or need to at least some level forecast how much you will be buying and then selling. So their cut also covers this work. And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed price for certain period and in some cases market can be distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively. Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of trading bots going wrong.
bdhdbebebeb 2y ago
If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already. * (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).
- noahjk 2y ago
  This is the only reply I understand, so I’ll follow up here - in this case, is the end user paying to push the energy into batteries that the power company owns? Or is the extra energy just dissipated somewhere? Or does the power company stop producing their own energy once the grid is saturated? (I believe that electricity doesn’t actually flow like water, so it’s not the exact same electrons that the solar panel is producing which would be stored on batteries or dissipated somewhere)
  - orwin 2y ago
    [edit] if you don't produce the exact amount consumed at the exact same time, the current will loose its phase and the effective energy transported will be reduced, while producing surtensions at different grid points (don't quote me on that, but accumulator try to keep the phase, and too much divergence can cause their failure from what I understand. But I'm no physic major and I might be completely wrong). Grid coordination is vital. The main issue with consumer solar connected to the grid is the lack of predictability. The reason why we charge if you put electricity on the grid when too much energy is produced is because we did not plan on offsetting this production, and the network people have to keep it balanced. Reducing the output of thermal fossil plants is usually free, but while we can module nuke plants, it's best and way cheaper when that is predicted (also, opportunity cost is high, so for privately owned nuke plants, it cost even more. EDF is the bitch of the European electricity market so they eat the opportunity costs, but they are the only plant owner who does it (and I won't talk about ARENH here, but again, EDF is the bitch of the EU). Then, when really to much shit is on the grid, and you have reservoir space, you pump the water up the STEP (batteries, but better). Up to 4500€/mwh if unpredicted (it's never actually that, but it's the price seer in the SPOT command order). And lastly, if it's the only solution, wind/solar farms are shut down. Again, if predicted, good time to do the maintenance. In the future consumer grade installations will probably come with a lot of stuff to help with the lack of predictability. I don't love it, but that's actually my current job (well, I actually love the actual job, really interesting shit, I'm not so sure about the moral implications of even more surveillance. Because we do have the geoloc of the newer installations. We don't link it with anything relevant yet, and it's anonymous for the moment, but will it stay that way?)

dtech 2y ago

When there is a lot of wind and sun simultaneously there is effectively too much electricity supply on the net, and day-ahead prices drop negative. This is partially fueled by flat subsidies per unit produced (has been fixed for a while for new installations), so producing when there's oversupply can still be profitable. Also most households have a flat energy rate and can amortize their energy usage over the year, so they will always keep their solar panels on even if the energy is less than worthless. US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.

pierot 2y ago

Yes, prices can go negative if you have a dynamic energy contract.

Ekaros 2y ago

Purchasers want to make margin on anything. So they charge this on the seller and then on buyer. Also with how markets work it is not like there isn't risks or need to at least some level forecast how much you will be buying and then selling. So their cut also covers this work. And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed price for certain period and in some cases market can be distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively. Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of trading bots going wrong.

bdhdbebebeb 2y ago

If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already. * (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).

noahjk 2y ago
This is the only reply I understand, so I’ll follow up here - in this case, is the end user paying to push the energy into batteries that the power company owns? Or is the extra energy just dissipated somewhere? Or does the power company stop producing their own energy once the grid is saturated? (I believe that electricity doesn’t actually flow like water, so it’s not the exact same electrons that the solar panel is producing which would be stored on batteries or dissipated somewhere)
- orwin 2y ago
  [edit] if you don't produce the exact amount consumed at the exact same time, the current will loose its phase and the effective energy transported will be reduced, while producing surtensions at different grid points (don't quote me on that, but accumulator try to keep the phase, and too much divergence can cause their failure from what I understand. But I'm no physic major and I might be completely wrong). Grid coordination is vital. The main issue with consumer solar connected to the grid is the lack of predictability. The reason why we charge if you put electricity on the grid when too much energy is produced is because we did not plan on offsetting this production, and the network people have to keep it balanced. Reducing the output of thermal fossil plants is usually free, but while we can module nuke plants, it's best and way cheaper when that is predicted (also, opportunity cost is high, so for privately owned nuke plants, it cost even more. EDF is the bitch of the European electricity market so they eat the opportunity costs, but they are the only plant owner who does it (and I won't talk about ARENH here, but again, EDF is the bitch of the EU). Then, when really to much shit is on the grid, and you have reservoir space, you pump the water up the STEP (batteries, but better). Up to 4500€/mwh if unpredicted (it's never actually that, but it's the price seer in the SPOT command order). And lastly, if it's the only solution, wind/solar farms are shut down. Again, if predicted, good time to do the maintenance. In the future consumer grade installations will probably come with a lot of stuff to help with the lack of predictability. I don't love it, but that's actually my current job (well, I actually love the actual job, really interesting shit, I'm not so sure about the moral implications of even more surveillance. Because we do have the geoloc of the newer installations. We don't link it with anything relevant yet, and it's anonymous for the moment, but will it stay that way?)