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For anyone thinking negative prices is a good thing: It's not. It's a panic signal because there are no takers for an oversupply of energy, making the grid unst

For anyone thinking negative prices is a good thing: It's not. It's a panic signal because there are no takers for an oversupply of energy, making the grid unstable.

nutjob2 6mo ago
It's a good thing if you can profit from it. It doesn't seem that hard. All you need is a load, but obviously harder as you increase the scale. Heck you could build some large bodies of water and boil them from time to time.
- praptak 6mo ago
  > Heck you could build some large bodies of water and boil them from time to time. Some suppliers already do that. When a power plant also supplies the city heating, it makes sense for them to put the power surplus into pre-heated water which they can store and later distribute to the buyers of the heat. Obviously this needs some huge and well insulated tanks. Here's an article (in Polish) about one built in Warsaw, 10TJ capacity: https://globenergia.pl/najwiekszy-wodny-magazyn-ciepla-w-europie-powstaje-w-warszawie/ https://globenergia.pl/najwiekszy-wodny-magazyn-ciepla-w-eur...
  - adrianN 6mo ago
    Here is one in German for one in Berlin https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/2022/deutschlands-groesster-waermespeicher-am-start https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/...
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
mhitza 6mo ago
1. They could export the surplus. No? 2. Isn't cheaper electricity a good thing for the manufacturing industry?
- moooo99 6mo ago
  > 1. They could export the surplus. No? Yes, and that is in fact done. However, there it is still a bad deal with negative electricity prices. > Isn't cheaper electeicity a good thing for the manufacuring industry? It technically is, but its not as simple as that. Industrial manufacturing is a relatively steady load, which means the consumption is constant. The lowest prices do not matter all that much, the average price does. And that average price is relatively high here, even for industrial consumers.
- red75prime 6mo ago
  The negative price is an indication that consumers can't utilize all the energy. That is, no one is willing to pay to consume more.
- manarth 6mo ago
  > "They could export the surplus" Negative prices generally indicate that the transmission connections are already saturated: as much energy as possible (or financially/technically acceptable to the third parties) is already being exported. Transmission capacity and interconnectors are usually the bottlenecks.
_fizz_buzz_ 6mo ago
The grid is not unstable and it was also not unstable the last view days when prices were negative. Germany has one of the most stable grids in the world. Negative prices are good when you need to buy electricity and they are bad when you are selling, but of course generally in a functioning market there shouldn't really be too many days with negative prices. It does mean that there isn't enough storage currently on the grid.
- chongli 6mo ago
  Now what we need is a cheap grid interconnect for home users running solar panels that automatically starts charging a battery when grid prices go negative, to absorb that extra power.
  - eigenspace 6mo ago
    That already exists
- jbrnh 6mo ago
  They are working on that https://battery-charts.de/ https://battery-charts.de/
  - _fizz_buzz_ 6mo ago
    Sure, and negative prices will send a strong signal to the market to hurry up with adding storage. So, this will probably be more of a temporary situation and in the future there will be very few days with negative prices, however there will then also be fewer days with very high prices.
- red75prime 6mo ago
  Yeah, the curtailment is a simple way to deal with instability. I wonder who chooses which power plants should curtail their output. The Bundesnetzagentur?
  - jerven 6mo ago
expedition32 6mo ago
This has happened in the Netherlands many times. The North Sea is a wind turbine paradise but Dutch people are asleep 8 hours a day- weak!
eigenspace 6mo ago
The grid is not unstable, Germany has a gigantic amount of batteries, flywheels, and giant resistors that can soak up the power, and is able to order wind farms and solar producers to curtail production if its still too much for the grid. Contrary to what a lot of folklore about Germany's grid suggests, these investments in stability are actually the primary reason Germany's electricity is so expensive compared to a lot of other countries This is all actually beneficial. It creates real economic pressure for just about everyone to build and install more batteries everywhere to profit from the price swings. Most importantly, it motivates the wind and solar producers to buy up batteries and install them on site, so that they can shift the times where they sell power to the grid to times of day where its more profitable.
roenxi 6mo ago
For anyone interested, the dynamics are something like: 1) Commercial entities generally try to sell their products for a profit (positive price). 2) Negative prices make this quite hard. 3) To get back into positive profit, they're going to need to charge a higher price later on. There are 3 ways the overall market can go if prices are negative - either prices go positive at some other time to make up for the losses the power providers are making, someone figures out a use for the free power and the price stops going negative or power providers go out of business. Typically what this seems to result in for renewable-heavy grids is occasional (even regular) negative wholesale prices and some impressively high retail prices. Free electricity turns out to be very expensive; it shows the grid isn't coping.

For anyone thinking negative prices is a good thing: It's not. It's a panic signal because there are no takers for an oversupply of energy, making the grid unstable.

nutjob2 6mo ago

It's a good thing if you can profit from it. It doesn't seem that hard. All you need is a load, but obviously harder as you increase the scale. Heck you could build some large bodies of water and boil them from time to time.

praptak 6mo ago
> Heck you could build some large bodies of water and boil them from time to time. Some suppliers already do that. When a power plant also supplies the city heating, it makes sense for them to put the power surplus into pre-heated water which they can store and later distribute to the buyers of the heat. Obviously this needs some huge and well insulated tanks. Here's an article (in Polish) about one built in Warsaw, 10TJ capacity: https://globenergia.pl/najwiekszy-wodny-magazyn-ciepla-w-europie-powstaje-w-warszawie/ https://globenergia.pl/najwiekszy-wodny-magazyn-ciepla-w-eur...
- adrianN 6mo ago
  Here is one in German for one in Berlin https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/2022/deutschlands-groesster-waermespeicher-am-start https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/...

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

mhitza 6mo ago

1. They could export the surplus. No? 2. Isn't cheaper electricity a good thing for the manufacturing industry?

moooo99 6mo ago
> 1. They could export the surplus. No? Yes, and that is in fact done. However, there it is still a bad deal with negative electricity prices. > Isn't cheaper electeicity a good thing for the manufacuring industry? It technically is, but its not as simple as that. Industrial manufacturing is a relatively steady load, which means the consumption is constant. The lowest prices do not matter all that much, the average price does. And that average price is relatively high here, even for industrial consumers.
red75prime 6mo ago
The negative price is an indication that consumers can't utilize all the energy. That is, no one is willing to pay to consume more.
manarth 6mo ago
> "They could export the surplus" Negative prices generally indicate that the transmission connections are already saturated: as much energy as possible (or financially/technically acceptable to the third parties) is already being exported. Transmission capacity and interconnectors are usually the bottlenecks.

_fizz_buzz_ 6mo ago

The grid is not unstable and it was also not unstable the last view days when prices were negative. Germany has one of the most stable grids in the world. Negative prices are good when you need to buy electricity and they are bad when you are selling, but of course generally in a functioning market there shouldn't really be too many days with negative prices. It does mean that there isn't enough storage currently on the grid.

chongli 6mo ago
Now what we need is a cheap grid interconnect for home users running solar panels that automatically starts charging a battery when grid prices go negative, to absorb that extra power.
- eigenspace 6mo ago
  That already exists
jbrnh 6mo ago
They are working on that https://battery-charts.de/ https://battery-charts.de/
- _fizz_buzz_ 6mo ago
  Sure, and negative prices will send a strong signal to the market to hurry up with adding storage. So, this will probably be more of a temporary situation and in the future there will be very few days with negative prices, however there will then also be fewer days with very high prices.
red75prime 6mo ago
Yeah, the curtailment is a simple way to deal with instability. I wonder who chooses which power plants should curtail their output. The Bundesnetzagentur?
- jerven 6mo ago

expedition32 6mo ago

This has happened in the Netherlands many times. The North Sea is a wind turbine paradise but Dutch people are asleep 8 hours a day- weak!

eigenspace 6mo ago

The grid is not unstable, Germany has a gigantic amount of batteries, flywheels, and giant resistors that can soak up the power, and is able to order wind farms and solar producers to curtail production if its still too much for the grid. Contrary to what a lot of folklore about Germany's grid suggests, these investments in stability are actually the primary reason Germany's electricity is so expensive compared to a lot of other countries This is all actually beneficial. It creates real economic pressure for just about everyone to build and install more batteries everywhere to profit from the price swings. Most importantly, it motivates the wind and solar producers to buy up batteries and install them on site, so that they can shift the times where they sell power to the grid to times of day where its more profitable.

roenxi 6mo ago

For anyone interested, the dynamics are something like: 1) Commercial entities generally try to sell their products for a profit (positive price). 2) Negative prices make this quite hard. 3) To get back into positive profit, they're going to need to charge a higher price later on. There are 3 ways the overall market can go if prices are negative - either prices go positive at some other time to make up for the losses the power providers are making, someone figures out a use for the free power and the price stops going negative or power providers go out of business. Typically what this seems to result in for renewable-heavy grids is occasional (even regular) negative wholesale prices and some impressively high retail prices. Free electricity turns out to be very expensive; it shows the grid isn't coping.