Comment by ed25519FUUU
3 years ago
California is facing a similar issue dealing with its solar duck curve[1], where prices essentially go negative during periods of peak solar generation.
As far as I know residential PG&E customers can't buy energy in spot market prices, or else there could be some innovative arbitrage opportunities, like only running bitcoin miners when power is cheap.
1. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...
If only there were some actually useful use of excessive energy that weren’t mining bitcoin.
One example is producing hydrogen from water with excess power. It can then be added to the natural gas network, or used by trucks or trains, or stored for a power plant.
Orkney is trialling this.
Charging cars, heating water in a well insulated tank
It's great when we can use off peak energy for things like this, but they're not as easy to locate onsite as bitcoin miners .. and difficulty with transmission is a big part of the problem
4 replies →
Why not Bitcoin? You can sell it for cash. Do you not like cash? You can plant trees with cash or lots of other green things.
If you live in a developed market with no need for the utility bitcoin provides, then to you bitcoin is only a waste of energy, and energy generation is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In this case you see it as all cost and no benefit, and any counterpoint goes against your dogma, which is 'inconvenient' or irritating
1 reply →
Spot prices are the best in order to save the planet so to speak. People will waste energy when it's cheap aka pay with their wallets. A lot of EU household's pays market price for the electricity.