Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 101 posts

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#31

Post by jbrnh »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #22
somedude895 wrote: post #14

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.

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…

They are working on that https://battery-charts.de/

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#33

Post by HPsquared »

paule89 wrote: post #25
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you can get energy plans with a price that updates every half hour, published a day ahead. From 12:30pm - 4pm today that price is negative. It was also negative for around 16 hours of Easter Sunday. https://www.octopriceuk.app/agile

Well dynamic pricing only ever works until you have a power outage in the winter and suddenly you pay a years worth of money for the 1 hour you could use your fridge, during a snowstorm.

That's what batteries are for.

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#34

Post by Sankozi »

red75prime wrote: post #21
cubefox wrote: post #13

> Excess electricity produced during periods of low consumption cannot yet be stored at scale, as battery capacity remains limited.

...and batteries are unsuitable for seasonal storage.

First lets handle single summer day using renewables + storage (California is slowly getting there). Then we can talk about seasonal problems.

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#35

Post by red75prime »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #22
somedude895 wrote: post #14

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.

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…

Yeah, the curtailment is a simple way to deal with instability. I wonder who chooses which power plants should curtail their output. The Bundesnetzagentur?

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#36

Post by HPsquared »

api wrote: post #18
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you can get energy plans with a price that updates every half hour, published a day ahead. From 12:30pm - 4pm today that price is negative. It was also negative for around 16 hours of Easter Sunday. https://www.octopriceuk.app/agile

Where’s profitable crypto mining when you need it? Back yard plasma furnace? Artificial diamond making? Aluminum smelting?

Even just a large water tank which you can choose when to add heat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_energy_storag...

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#37

Post by eigenspace »

somedude895 wrote: post #14

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.

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.

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#38

Post by jbrnh »

red75prime wrote: post #21
cubefox wrote: post #13

> Excess electricity produced during periods of low consumption cannot yet be stored at scale, as battery capacity remains limited.

...and batteries are unsuitable for seasonal storage.

How is seasonal storage relevant here? This is the usual few-hours-fluctuations, I assume? (can't read the article)

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#39

Post by __d »

arpinum wrote: post #16
jones89176 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it makes private energy storage a viable investment option. You can just invest in a large battery (or other storage system) and make a profit over buying/selling energy. I really hope, this happens on a big scale and further reduces the dependency on fossil fuels (at least over 24h. winter is a different question)

It does not make private energy storage viable on its own. You need to get enough charge/discharge cycles out of it in a certain time period. This means you need almost daily high price fluctuations. We aren't seeing that in Europe. We see high winds push down prices for multiple days and we see multiple weeks with consistent high prices in the winter, with occasional drops on the weekend.

It’s a daily event now in Australia. Very low prices during the middle of the day, and higher in the morning and evening. Anyone with a battery or an EV they don’t need to drive far can play the market, usually with scripted sell/buy trigger points.

There’s enough profit to make the payback period for a decent battery quite short.

Re: Germany Power Prices Turn Deeply Negative on Renewables Surge

#40

Post by eigenspace »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #6

If it were just easy to buy a bunch of batteries and profit from this by selling the same energy during evening/night. But that is only reserved for the big players I guess.

No, it is not at all reserved for big players. You just need to get a dynamic price electricity contract, and a smart-meter in your home and you can do this right now.
Post reply on HN