Comment by pfdietz
5 years ago
The only reason renewables would cause negative prices is the subsidy they get on generated output, that would cause them to continue generating because for THEM they are still making money at that instant. Otherwise, the renewable source itself could capture the negative price by just not feeding power to the grid.
Although I guess they "burn" their excess on-site, doesn't it make sense for solar panels to send power to a load at all times?
If they didn't, wouldn't that unspent energy make the panels even hotter and shorten lifespan/reduce efficiency?
It doesn't make sense for them to be sending power to the grid if they earn negative dollars doing it.
No, there's no cost to just not drawing power from the modules. They would become slightly hotter, but that's not a big deal.
I mean, if they're 20% efficient, then shunting the energy would mean they have 4/5ths the energy getting turned into heat, no?
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Dumping power is not free - you need properly cooled resistor banks etc. to do it safely. For many forms of generation it's worth putting power on the grid at negative prices under some circumstances.