Germany has too many solar panels, and it's pushed energy prices into negative territory

Cheap energy being framed as some kind of problem is a great demonstration of why we need a free press that isn't solely owned by billionaires

I mean... Good? Shouldn't that be the goal, electricity at no cost to the people?

No. That’s like saying the UK has too much wind power because our prices occasionally go negative. What Germany might not have enough of is battery and other storage

Oh no, it's too bad Germany isn't surrounded by other countries it could sell that excess power to!

Fuck that title. No such thing as too many solar panels. The only thing that is bad is how the energy is used or if it's wasted. Free energy should mean algae production which would mean carbon negativity. Negative energy price should mean negative carbon emissions, get on it.

It gets even more absurd. The southern states blocked building large power lines to transport cheap wind energy south. Now they struggle because the chea renewable energy cannot go there. So while there is plenty of renewables in the north the south still runs coal plants to provide local energy. But then the people in the north have to pay for "network fees" because the South couldnt take their energy.

Because of this it was suggested to split the German energy market in two, where the south which fought against renewables would have to pay the actual electricity costs instead of leeching of the North that properly build up renewables. This was fought teeth and nails because the South of Germany is like Texas but with an even worse superiority complex.

Too much clean energy that is nearly free sounds like a much better type of problem to solve than most.

Sounds like Germany can start exporting said energy and make even more money. How is this a bad thing?

This is why the US is working so hard to stop renewables. Rich people don't make any money when power is free.

Good. Cheap electric will help more transition from more polluting energy types. Electric cars, ovens, steel, etc.

Stop burning coal then

Oh no! What about the executives yachts? Are they safe?

Solar powered citizens: "Fuck you, pay me."

Germany pays Denmark money to stop creating wind energy when the prices get too low

Imagine having so much energy that you'd rather spend money not to harvest it, instead of maybe using it to make hydrogen or storing it on other ways

Scarcity is a requirement for capitalism.

Power being priced negative is awesome. We need more of it imo, make energy so abundant that it makes processes that were previously too energy-intensive viable, and enables a massive increase in both residential and grid storage capacity.

My opinion is that Na-ion batteries are the way for bulk grid storage and apartment/home storage nya.

They use hyper abundant materials and are now reaching the point of decent endurance, and if you arent bothered by them being heavy (as is the case for grid and residential storage), they're fairly comparable to Li-Ion without the usage of relatively rare Lithium.

Leave it to the business world to wet-blanket this because of money. Really helps the cause, public opinion, and such.

The only issue is they have not enough storage capacity for the excess.

Does that mean Germany will have the exotic negative energy that makes constructing a wormhole possible?

Nice. Now work on storage solutions to cover nights.

Imagine if we had this for housing. Sometimes it feels like we're close to post-scarcity if we just wanted to.

This is a clear social good.

If it threatens economic hardship on solar power producers then it'd be extremely rational for the government to subsidize those companies.

Oh no! Failing from success! /s

Free energy!

This was expected. When solar panels were expensive, you had to optimize for output. When you get the same rate for any kWh, you optimize for output. Now that PV is cheap as fuck, of course, there's going to overproduction.

Now the dynamic will change. Instead of facing south, it becomes attractive to orient east/west. This generates more output on mornings or evenings. As a next step, you add batteries to the mix. Yes, they said they were expensive, need rare materials, and yadda yadda; except with lower prices every month, solar batteries are thing now.

Also "overproduction" is relative. Most of our heating and transport is fossil. There's a long way to go.

This is the entire reason why countries like China are investing hard into ultra-high-voltage transmission lines.

While regions like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have immense wind and solar potential, getting that electricity to the population centers is challenging.

Selling electricity to Eastern Europe, to Northern Africa, hell even to the Middle East is an option if Europe is truly operating an electricity surplus.

Cheap renewable energy? This is devastating! How will we ever recover from this?

More from the same author:

Starvation and malnutrition plummet as crop yields increase. Unfortunately a new industry of storing food must be created to ensure the excess is preserved for times of need.

Free time skyrockets as menial labor is offloaded onto AI and machines. Unfortunately a new self-actualization industry must be created for people to learn intellectual and creative skills they didn't have time or money for.

Higher education rates increase as governments help fund students and enact laws to keep for-profit-education from price gouging. Unfortunately untold new industries are created as unnoticed talent is given the opportunity to cultivate it.

What? The energy prices are above average here in Germany...

Capitalism simply cannot comprehend not paying for things.

To capitalists, a world without private profit, winners with too much, and losers with nothing isn't a world worth existing.

sounds like a good problem to have

It sounds like some enterprising capitalist should be building out energy storage to be paid to take the surplus and sell it back when the sun's not out.

Permanently Deleted

Do they have pumped hydro? Or maybe produce hydrogen intermittently with this surplus power...maybe sodium batteries will help with storage?

Buy more batteries?

I wonder if this could open the door to cost-effective desalination, carbon capture, and similar projects.

Always interesting https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE

So sell the excess panels to countries that need them, duh

So how does that work? Could you make money running a big energy-wasting heating coil?

They shourd hurry up with district heating. It's the cheapest energy storage there is.

Sounds like its time to invest in some energy storage. Batteries are one thing but at that kind of scale it's probably better to go with momentum storage or something

In reality, this doesn't mean that consumers are reimbursed to use electricity, as they're not paying raw market price.

So this is literally just pure profit for the producers, and they're still complaining

Maybe if they keep buying petrol products from Russia then they can obtain enough grey hydrogen for a hydrogen economy. /s