It's Been So Windy in Europe That Electricity Prices Have Turned Negative (vice.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It's been very windy across Europe this week. So much so, in fact, that the high wind load on onshore and offshore wind turbines across much of the continent has helped set new wind power records. For starters, renewables generated more than half of Britain's energy demand on Wednesday -- for the first time ever. In fact, with offshore wind supplying 10 percent of the total demand, energy prices were knocked into the negative for the longest period on record. The UK is home to the world's biggest wind farm, and the largest wind turbines, so it's no surprise that this was an important factor in the country's energy mix. "Negative prices aren't frequently observed," Joel Meggelaars, who works at renewable energy trade body WindEurope, told Motherboard over the phone. "It means a high supply and low demand."

Comments

subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be nice to have such a high subsidy that you can pay people for your product and still make a profit.

Re:subsidy

[beelsebob]

It's not about subsidy, it's about keeping the grid voltage constant.

You're paying people for the service of using up energy, and keeping the grid stable. Negative electricity prices are really a symptom of not having enough storage capacity on the grid.

Re:subsidy

[guruevi]

Doesn't quite work that way. There is no such thing as an oversupply on an electric grid. Just because you have a wall wart that can supply 2000mA doesn't mean it will blow up your cell phone that only needs 500mA.

These are point prices on the energy market and works much like stock and futures markets. It's not like they go knocking at people's door to beg them to use energy, the end user still pays an exorbitant amount ($1+) per kWh at the end of the month. This is just a temporary swing in the futures of "supply cost" which is a very small chunk of the final cost, usage taxes, green buildout taxes, regulatory cost, network maintenance and energy transport costs make up the majority of the bill.

The reason for this is indeed subsidies, which you pay for in taxes. So the state subsidizes "green" power, but you can't just turn off your nuclear and other plants, that would be both dangerous and take days to recover. So you keep supplying power and as always, the only option is to turn off flexible generators (solar and wind), the problem is that you now have a bunch of money the government gives you per kWh the green energy plant "generates" but there is no demand and you can't legally keep/collect the money, so now the people that have paid for the futures of the green energy plant get paid back based on how much the plant would've generated if it were running.

So the end users are paying speculators through taxes levied on their energy bills for the energy that doesn't end up being generated.

useful dumpload needed

[LeadGeek]

When there is a surplus of renewable power in search of a load, perhaps plants should be brought on-line that draw in atmospheric carbon dioxide and split it into solid carbon and oxygen. The carbon could then be sequestered by burying into empty coal mines. Maybe someday we'll refill all coal mines with atmospheric (really oceanic) carbon and vow never to do that again.

My $0.02 anyway...

Re:useful dumpload needed

[beelsebob]

Better yet, have "plants" brought online to do something useful, like pump that energy into batteries, pump water high up a hill, pump gas into high pressure chambers, pull trains up hills, etc, so that the energy can be used later when the pendulum swings the other way.

Re:useful dumpload needed

[beelsebob]

Not when it can be done more efficiently, no. Storing electricity in pumped storage/batteries is ~90% efficient. Carbon sequestering systems, combined with carbon burning production is substantially less efficient than that.

Re:Misleading Headlines Again...

[DontBeAMoran]

The suppliers should invest in Bitcoin mining rigs.

Re:Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on make and model it takes seconds to minutes. Modern wind plants can be turned off or down to a set percentage or to a set ceiling almost instantaneously.
The energy price turning negative "enough" causes this to be set in motion, albeit not completely automatically (somebody usually decides looking at day-ahead market prices for which quarter-hours a specific turbine should be turned off or throttled). It could be automated, but right now there is really no need to and it might make the system more unpredictable depending on how many actors there are in the market.

In any case, wind power plants don't usually get turned off if the price is just slightly negative or zero since turning them off can have other costs; in Germany, for instance, wind power plant operators are entitled to be compensated a set price per kWh produced; whenever their plant gets turned off they still get compensated for the energy they could have produced. The paperwork of compensation for these events (when the grid operator or pool operator turns off the plant) has a cost, and as such actors look at whether or not they are better off letting the turbine run or turning it off.

The weird thing is that wind and solar and other renewables are the power generators that tend to get turned off first; coal and nuclear cannot be turned off or throttled nearly as fast and have considerable cost ramping up again (both in fuel expenditure and equipment churn); they are also often sold at a set price months to weeks in advance, so they don't get affected by so-called negative energy prices; really, negative energy prices only happen in day-ahead and intra-day markets, which coal and nuclear almost never get sold in; in a case of surplus power, these fossil fuel-based power generators rarely if ever get turned off or down. That sucks, really.

Energy price in intraday and day-ahead markets is the knob being used to equalize supply and demand on the grid. It works reasonably well but has some interesting artifacts.

More, better, and cheaper storage would fit into this model as well and even be compensated by it -- store energy in times prices are low or negative, and pump it back on the grid when the price recovers. Unfortunately there aren't really that many feasible and affordable energy storage options.