Comment by pjc50
7 hours ago
> "Please don't tell me that we are paying batteries to _not_ export" – it's actually the opposite, the batteries paid to not export (at least today).
Unfortunately you've got at least one negative wrong in this sentence and I'm still confused, and the linked dataset is currently blank?
Sorry for complaining, this is a great website!
No worries. The Detailed System Prices dataset is lagged by a couple hours so try going back in time.
The simplest answer I can give is that assets place bids and a volume of energy that they are willing to turn down if the system operator needs to. Those bids are either positive or negative in value and this depends a lot on the type of asset, for example wind assets usually bid negative (ie. we pay them to turn down) while gas assets usually bid positive (ie. they pay us to turn down). The reason for that is a lot to do with complexities of the market and also the cost of running that assets, the cost of fuels, etc.
Ok, got it I think.
So actually the battery operator is paying _the grid_ to turn down output from whatever was previously agreed (because they think they'd get more money for it later?).
And this shows as curtailment on the map?
Let me know if I'm directionally right here. If I am, it would be good to see 'bad curtailment' vs 'good curtailment' (i assume if bids are negative/positive?)