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Germany has spent $200 billion over the past two decades to promote cleaner sources of electricity. That enormous investment is now having an unexpected impact — consumers are now actually paid to use power on occasion, as was the case over the weekend.
Power prices plunged below zero for much of Sunday and the early hours of Christmas Day on the EPEX Spot, a large European power trading exchange, the result of low demand, unseasonably warm weather and strong breezes that provided an abundance of wind power on the grid.
Such "negative prices" are not the norm in Germany, but they are far from rare, thanks to the country's effort to encourage investment in greener forms of power generation. Prices for electricity in Germany have dipped below zero — meaning customers are being paid to consume power — more than 100 times this year alone, according to EPEX Spot.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Wednesday January 03 2018, @07:30AM (10 children)
Do note this tidbit from TFA: "Do German consumers benefit from ‘negative prices’? Not directly."
Only the wholesale prices go negative. That includes (some) industrial customers, but consider the problem: You have a factory that would use a lot of electricity, but you cannot just start and stop a production line at some random time. Meanwhile, here in Switzerland, there are companies that run hydroelectric storage, are unable to get enough business, and are on the verge of bankruptcy. Hmmm...
What articles like TFA complete ignore: electrical power in Europe is a massively over-regulated market, used by politicians for the more ordinary sort of power games [europa.eu]. Subsidy here, restriction there, who can sell power to whom with what restrictions - the whole market is a mess. And the answer is always more regulation, more governance, more pork for politicians to distribute.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @07:45AM (5 children)
Ditch the power regulation, and you create something like Enron and the rolling blackouts that California suffered.
The free market will very efficiently allocate resources for the average need. There will be little margin for failure. The free market doesn't want to pay for redundant power equipment. The free market just doesn't give a damn about reliability. Companies that attempt to be reliable are quickly put out of business due to high costs.
(Score: 5, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:00AM
Natural last-mile monopolies supplying basic critical utilities (water, electricity, gas, landline internet) should not be for-profit nor private.
Whatever happened to actual Strategic Interest? Do we need another world war to remind people, or will people finally notice industries are getting priced out of some consumer markets by their utility bills compared to their foreign competitors?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Wednesday January 03 2018, @11:49PM (3 children)
Pennsylvania and Texas didn't have those problems when they deregulated their markets. California regulators created the problem: power generation heavily restricted in California so a massive amount of power needs to be supplied from neighboring states; the "spot" market (market for in day power needs) was mandated for most power consumption - the distribution utilities couldn't buy contracts to avoid using the market excessively (this created the fertile grounds for market manipulation that Enron exploited); and California regulators looked the other way for months until it got so bad (with two of the big three companies in bankruptcy) that the governor (who probably was bribed to look the other way) had to intervene.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @01:35AM
and enron was a cia front so wtf does it have to do with the "free market", as if we have one in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:43AM (1 child)
Shirley, you fuck-all idiot khallow, living where you live, you are familiar with the demise of Montana Power? The hated corporation that was the spawn of Rockefeller and Anaconda Mining Company? Are you a shill for 19th century Robber Barrons, as well as the more recent versions? Or just ignorant of history? Inquiring minds want to know, khallow!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 04 2018, @12:44PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @07:52AM
Also ignores that people with money will simply build there own free( except for basic maintenance) as google and facefuck are doing, only capital will benefit from new and innovative tech, sure this is the opposite of what was envisioned, but how else are you going to pay for you 2400 a month 100 sq ft apartment in Winnipeg?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @08:20AM
And the result in an excess of energy, so that prices go negative? If only they had stuck to an American Enron Style FREE MaRKet system, where there could be artificial shortages, price gouging, post-to-pay accounting, and Donald Trump. Nasty Socialist Euros! We need to Amexit!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
is the conservative answer always deregulation?
it worked for enron, prices in fact did not go negative! not at all! infact there were power outages that... weren't from the lack of power!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 04 2018, @03:12PM
The real question is why in the face of obvious evidence of too much regulation should the answer be anything else? It's not just negative prices for electrical power subsidized by small German consumers who pay well over average European rates. It's example after example of complex, opaque, onerous law that causes perverse and sometimes horrifying consequences to people who happen to run afoul of it (and which some bureaucrat decides to prosecute). It's law created faster than you can read it. It's the scenario where "ignorance is no excuse" becomes a sick joke.