Germany Now Has So Much Solar Power That Its Electric Prices Are Going Negative

3 comments

1. This exposes a fundamental conflict between cheap clean power and capitalism.

   When prices fall so low, there is no profit to be had. There is no point investing.

   But as a community, a town or a nation, this is a genuine opportunity to get the energy we need at low prices and with low pollution and damage to the climate.

   So why aren’t governments around the world investing in cheap clean power supplied directly to their populations through state owned and run utilities?

   One word. Neoliberalism.

   The economic and political doctrine that markets MUST decide – that governments must play NO role in the economy other than to enable capitalist corporations.

   This doctrine needs to die before our planet does.

2. Found the article disappointing as it doesn’t really explain that negative prices only happen during peak solar hours in sunny days and that it happened already in 2023. It is not a long term negative price and afaik consumers are not being paid tonuse excess energy. Power prices in Europe are now lower than 2 years ago (Russian invasion of Ukraine made prices skyrocket), but they are higher than they were before.

   Very poor article.

3. I don’t understand why prices go *negative* in electricity. Other commodities going negative make sense – there is a cost to carry: barrels of oil, housing materials somewhere, etc. But with electricity, you can just get rid of the energy fast for ~free (whether through running it to ground, flaring, running a pump or something, etc), so it should be an instant arb?

   I understand the prices is an indication to the market, but conceptually I’d expect electricity prices to never go negative as the producer can presumably get rid of the electricity for essentially free cost, rather than sell it off at negative prices?