This ignores capital and opportunity cost. Building a GPU data center or chemical plant costs a lot. If you only use it 20% of the time, you're effectively paying 5x more for that capital equipment.
That ‘negative value’ electricity could also be used to do something else. And actually requires a lot of capital to produce. It isn’t actually free, it’s a side effect of another process that has restraints/restrictions.
The problem here is that the production of hydrocarbons, ammonia, etc. from electricity can only make back its high upfront investment when it runs basically 24/7. This is a challenge for renewables.
In China which recently opened a large off-grid green ammonia plant in Chifeng, they use multiple tiers of energy storage to ensure constant electric power availability.
The problem is the capital cost of any of that type of equipment sitting around idle or under-capacity, ready to go when the electricity price goes down. It's likely more profitable to run them most of the time, even with positive electric rates, and then only stop using them when rates are exceptionally high ("load shedding").
This is why you see most opportunistic electricity consumption systems doing resistive heating - this equipment is inexpensive.
This ignores capital and opportunity cost. Building a GPU data center or chemical plant costs a lot. If you only use it 20% of the time, you're effectively paying 5x more for that capital equipment.
> make synthetic fossil fuels from atmospheric CO2.
that would actually be my preferred solution (if only it was less energy inefficient, sigh).
If the marginal value of electricity is negative, what matters if it is energy inefficient?
Scale/quantity.
That ‘negative value’ electricity could also be used to do something else. And actually requires a lot of capital to produce. It isn’t actually free, it’s a side effect of another process that has restraints/restrictions.
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The problem here is that the production of hydrocarbons, ammonia, etc. from electricity can only make back its high upfront investment when it runs basically 24/7. This is a challenge for renewables.
In China which recently opened a large off-grid green ammonia plant in Chifeng, they use multiple tiers of energy storage to ensure constant electric power availability.
The problem is the capital cost of any of that type of equipment sitting around idle or under-capacity, ready to go when the electricity price goes down. It's likely more profitable to run them most of the time, even with positive electric rates, and then only stop using them when rates are exceptionally high ("load shedding").
This is why you see most opportunistic electricity consumption systems doing resistive heating - this equipment is inexpensive.