Energy prices being driven into negative territory means that energy providers (and thus households with solar panels) have to pay for energy they provide to the electricity grid because the grid is almost at capacity. It’s a measure to discourage electricity production and encourage energy use for these periods.
Solar energy has the characteristic that it provides lots of energy during a sunny summer day, less in winter and none at night. So it’s not a constant or controllable flow like nuclear or fossil energy. To be able to completely switch to green energy, (afaik) either the grid capacity has to be increased tenfolds, or energy suppliers need huge batteries to store energy during supply spikes. Batteries are not super durable and their production not green at all so that has to be taken into account when determining the ecological footprint and material cost of solar energy.
This all is not to say that solar is comparably bad to fossil energy, I’m just explaining the hurdles that need to be taken care of when switching to solar.
Point out the economic bind they’re in. Let them know you’re not going to subsidize them. Offer them a fire sale price.
A government willing to pay anything at all for a stranded economic asset is still an amazing deal. If they’re set to lose millions and you offer them a dollar, you just saved them millions, so the buy out should be cheap if managed by a government that isn’t beholden to billionaires.
Some people financed them under the obviously flawed assumption that they would always get like 10c/kWh for their excess electricity.
In some countries () pension funds are pretty bought into conventional energy production, under the assumption that this is a save investment with consistent returns. So this will be a bit of a blow to an already crumbling system.
I’ve seen that post a few times now and I still don’t get what they’re trying to say like how could that possibly be a bad thing?
Energy prices being driven into negative territory means that energy providers (and thus households with solar panels) have to pay for energy they provide to the electricity grid because the grid is almost at capacity. It’s a measure to discourage electricity production and encourage energy use for these periods.
Solar energy has the characteristic that it provides lots of energy during a sunny summer day, less in winter and none at night. So it’s not a constant or controllable flow like nuclear or fossil energy. To be able to completely switch to green energy, (afaik) either the grid capacity has to be increased tenfolds, or energy suppliers need huge batteries to store energy during supply spikes. Batteries are not super durable and their production not green at all so that has to be taken into account when determining the ecological footprint and material cost of solar energy.
This all is not to say that solar is comparably bad to fossil energy, I’m just explaining the hurdles that need to be taken care of when switching to solar.
Oh what a shame I guess it makes economic sense to nationalize utilities then
For the national economy sure, but if we are talking about ROI on buying out power plants, hard to imagine a worse time for that.
Let them go bankrupt then they’re cheap.
Point out the economic bind they’re in. Let them know you’re not going to subsidize them. Offer them a fire sale price.
A government willing to pay anything at all for a stranded economic asset is still an amazing deal. If they’re set to lose millions and you offer them a dollar, you just saved them millions, so the buy out should be cheap if managed by a government that isn’t beholden to billionaires.
Let them pay for cleaning up their own mess and build something renewable.
I think the idea that these power plants have a positive economic value 5-10 years from now is rather uncertain.
I mean it’s a thing and it has effects.
Some people financed them under the obviously flawed assumption that they would always get like 10c/kWh for their excess electricity.
In some countries (
) pension funds are pretty bought into conventional energy production, under the assumption that this is a save investment with consistent returns. So this will be a bit of a blow to an already crumbling system.