I’ll note that right now, this is a seasonal issue, associated with moderate springtime temperatures when there is a lot of sunshine available.
I’ll note that right now, this is a seasonal issue, associated with moderate springtime temperatures when there is a lot of sunshine available.
Oh no, the sun is free power? What ever will we do! We must protect the profits of our monopolies!!!
Probably should read the article. Nah. Fuck that. Much better to just express outraged, regardless if it makes sense.
I don’t make sense, I make dollars! To be fair, negative prices and an over abundance of solar energy are standard complaints of conservatives.
they are right though. if you look into this at all, you will quickly find that negative prices are not a problem because of profits, but because non-renewable energy sources start to undergo damage when the power they create is unused due to an overfilled power grid. negative prices exist because they are willing to pay folks to use the power that is threatening infrastructure.
as the article outlines, the solution is storage, but storage capacity has not yet caught up to solar capacity.
believe me, i too am highly critical of capitalism. but for once, this isn’t an instance of that. and by failing to read and understand the article you have entered this thread in pretty bad faith, more or less spreading misinformation because it’s what you assume to be true.
Yep, this is sadly a physical problem in the essence, not created virtually by capitalist economy. The negative price is just how the capitalist economy reacts at it.
glad mine was a helpful comment and thanks for your further comment adding detail :) was getting down over all the misunderstanding going on in the comments. cheers!
It is though. The entire reason we’re still using obsolete inflexible technology is capitalism. Might not be able to buy that 4th yacht if we pay to upgrade our LNG plant.
Okay, I went and read it because I have more time today and excess electricity causing physical damage is a compelling narrative. But this article doesn’t support that. It’s just plant operators having to pay for people to take their electricity because their plant is obsolete technology and can’t idle. I did check a few other articles too. It seems the damage is financial and a problem because we’ve turned a public good into a for profit capitalist system.
The solution is many things but also to just have modern natural gas plants that are more than capable of flexible output. Of course the profit motive means updates like that only come when forced and boards like the CPUC have been hopelessly captured for my entire lifetime. So instead they shit on their consumers.