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Germany has too many solar panels, and it's pushed energy prices into negative territory
(markets.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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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
They could always just close their coal power plants. Idk why they don't.
My guess is that in a climate like Germany's, solar isn't consistent enough to provide the steady baseline power that coal plants can.
One of the complexities of power infrastructure is that demand must be met instantaneously and exactly. Coal and solar typically occupy different roles in a grid's power sources. Coal plants are slow to start, but very consistent, so they provide baseline power. Solar is virtually instantaneous, but inconsistent, so it's better suited to handle the daily fluctuations.
So, in a place like Germany, even in abundance, solar can't realistically replace coal until we have a good way of storing power to act as a buffer. Of course, nuclear is a fantastic replacement for coal, but we all know how Germany's politicians feel about it...
We also know building nuclear takes 20 years and costs more than building thrice the capacity in renewables + Germany has no long-term nuclear storage, only temporary one's a la Simpsons.
Germany had 17 active nuclear plants in 2011 and decommissioned them all by 2023.
They were already past their expiry date. Germany would face the same shit France is facing with their old reactors.
You are correct that when you build one new plant every 25 years it takes a long time to spool the industry, the skills, the testing and the manufacturing capability up to build new nuclear.
In countries that regularly build new nuclear it takes 5 years, comparable to any other power source. When France when through their mass-conversion to nuclear in the 70s (following the oil crisis), they put 2-3 new nuclear plants into operation every year.
All new western nuclear is in “production hell”. We don’t build them often enough to retain the skill set or for industry to dare invest. So they become massive state-run enterprises.
If we were serious on solving our climate crisis we would build nuclear power plans en masse.
Coulnd't we use solar to pump water into reservoirs, and then let the water flow through hydroelectrical dams when we need the electricity?
[yes](> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity)
Oh wow, I had no idea this existed. Awesome!
Wait Are these not common where you are?
We have a lot of dams, but I haven't heard that we were pumping water into the reservoirs.
We also don't have, like, fields of solar panels, as far as I know. I think it's too cloudy here. But we have wind turbines, especially in coastal areas.
I guess I meant not all of them and especially not at the same time but that wasn't clear in my first post. I understand that a baseline is needed but if during daytime they're generating excess constantly then shutting down a few wouldn't hurt. Especially since Germany is one of the biggest offenders in the world when it comes to coal. Storage is definitely a concern but in case of surges there's other power from neighboring countries that can help with the demand. Sodium ion batteries are looking like a good possibility.
Because they would have brownouts overnight and when the weather was bad.
Obviously...
Because as the article says, consumers use more power during non-solar hours.
The Ukraine war has also caused oil and gas prices to rise in Europe, so all alternatives to those need to remain on the table until Russia fucks off.
because solar panels are not a controllable energy source, solar is great until there's a cloud or it's nighttime, coal on the other hand is a controllable energy source. Since we can't effectively store energy we have to be constantly producing enough for the whole population, it's a really hard job!
Not enough preparation for saving energy overnight.
Germany it’s more the Russian gas they get. Shit hit the fan for them when they invaded Ukraine. Germany was like fuuuuuuuu
Well it is a problem, sort of. It's a failing of the market.
But it does open up another market for energy storage so it will save itself through regular marker forces.
But we absolutely want energy suppliers to make money off solar (over a year) or they will simply stop building more of it. I'm not sure if the German state is losing money on this though, in which case they absolutely need to build more storage.
I'm getting really worried about how energy is going to be generated in winter once solar and batteries completely dominate energy production in the summer.
This is the market working properly.
Well yes.
But having to pay people to take a good/service from you is really/ really weird. Not really sure how to describe it.
Build sufficient storage capacity and prices will not turn negative.
Happens all the time. My employer pays a company to come collect our e-waste, which they then sell to a recycler who strips it and sells the recycled metals. One company's trash is often another one's treasure. Or better yet, one company's liability is another company's asset. Excess electricity is a liability to the electric company so they pay to get rid of it. The amount they're paying for disposal is less than the potential cost of keeping the liability around (equipment failure in this case).
But you company isn't producing e waste.
To have a good that is both sold for profit and you pay someone to take it is weird.
It doesn't matter anyway, we both agree market forces will solve the problem.
Huh? What do you think a parking space is?
The thing is that it does represent some problems. First of all if Germany has already reached the limit of what it can do with solar then that’s sobering news because it is far from 100% sustainable. More solar than it can use? We should ask why. Not enough storage capacity: that’s a problem when consumers use more power in solar off-hours. And if energy prices become too volatile or even negative, that could harm the non-solar energy provider who provide the backup that solar requires.
I get the anti-corporatist message and all, but really we should look a little more deeply than our favorite narrative if we want to understand things. Reddit also needs to realize that business pages cater to business interests and investors, so not every headline is framed in terms of consumer benefit. News outlets can publish articles for business readers whether or not they are owned and puppeted by them.
Reddit?
it an old site like, kinda like Digg. all the brains left about a year or so ago when they made some horrible business choices and then IPO’d. a lot of the users came here to lemmy.
The problem isn’t that the energy is too cheap, it’s that there’s too much of it, which is why it’s so cheap. An electrical grid can only support so much power and there is no cost effective way to store enough energy to run the grid for any appreciable amount of time, so it all must be used or else the system becomes unstable.
That's so. At the same time I'm seeing heaps of stories about me ways to cheaply store power with cheap and common materials lately, so it seems like more of an engineering and infrastructure problem
What you’re hearing about is lab experiments. Moving something from the lab to something in production, with the reliability and life span required to participate on the public grid is hard.
I can hear Nikola Tesla rolling over in his grave
Can we use him to generate power?
Hook those coffins up to generators for infinite free electricity.
Make it output only DC and watch it churn!
Not to be too much of a contrarian, but it sorta is a problem if it is too cheap to support the people that are required to repair it and the parts/replacements for stuff that has failed. Plus, in 20-30 years you are going to have to have enough money on hand to replace todays panels, which if energy costs are almost free/negative, you might not. These are somewhat solvable problems (make energy costs just a tax to support the grid and cut out profit from the equation for the public good), but it is a bit of an issue that probably needs to be planned for.
Then it's not "too cheap". Charge the price it takes to maintain the production.