The “problem” of negative energy costs is easy to solve, but quite costly.
Build water desalination/carbon capture and storage/hydrogen generation plants that only run when the price goes below 0; even though these are very energy intensive, they would help stabilize the grid.
Then build more solar; you want to try to have the daytime price stay in the negative as often as possible.
Build water desalination/carbon capture and storage/hydrogen generation plants that only run when the price goes below 0; even though these are very energy intensive, they would help stabilize the grid.
Even if our energy market wasn’t profit driven, we would still have a shortage of energy, and either we would be burning up fossil fuels at an astonishing rate and a huge loss, or a number of heavy power users would be shutting down.
Price is one way we have to control demand, but if we didn’t use it, we would need another system instead.
The “problem” of negative energy costs is easy to solve, but quite costly.
Build water desalination/carbon capture and storage/hydrogen generation plants that only run when the price goes below 0; even though these are very energy intensive, they would help stabilize the grid.
Then build more solar; you want to try to have the daytime price stay in the negative as often as possible.
Basically opportunistic energy consumption.
That’s not exactly conducive towards people building more solar.
The solar isn’t the goal; the energy is enabling the value in other parts of the economy.
In fact; energy supply is so important to the reasonable functioning of the economy. It should be taken out of the profit driven cycle of business.
Look at what happened with WPI in Ohakune and PanPack when energy prices sky rocketed a few months back.
Even if our energy market wasn’t profit driven, we would still have a shortage of energy, and either we would be burning up fossil fuels at an astonishing rate and a huge loss, or a number of heavy power users would be shutting down.
Price is one way we have to control demand, but if we didn’t use it, we would need another system instead.