<story><title>Solar will get too cheap to connect to the power grid</title><url>https://climate.benjames.io/solar-off-grid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roenxi</author><text>&amp;gt; When there’s enough surplus energy supply from renewables, prices can even go negative. That&amp;#x27;s great news for consumers - who get paid to use energy - but it&amp;#x27;s bad news for renewable generators.&lt;p&gt;That isn&amp;#x27;t correct, it is just bad news for everyone. Sure if there was a &lt;i&gt;sustainable&lt;/i&gt; deal that offered negative prices that&amp;#x27;d be good, but in this case it just means the prices when positive will have to go up to cover the overall profits of the energy producers. Negative prices represent waste and it is quite unusual for waste to be good for consumers.&lt;p&gt;Although this is a minor point. The solar revolution is pretty exciting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Angostura</author><text>I disagree that it’s bad news. It gives additional incentives for consumers to get battery systems to go with their solar.&lt;p&gt;I live in the UK where prices go negative during periods of high wind&amp;#x2F;low demand.&lt;p&gt;There are also times where demand is so high that the electricity companies will pay a big premium for consumers who cut their consumption for a couple of hours, or who sell back to the grid, to avoid having to start up reserve coal-fired power stations.&lt;p&gt;I got batteries for my solar without any thought of them being very useful in winter, but in fact they are. I automatically force-charge when prices go negative and when the grid announces there is going to be an emergency need for power (usually a few hours notice), I’ll force charge and then force discharge during the time of need.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;octopus.energy&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;farewell-saving-sessions-wrap-up&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;octopus.energy&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;farewell-saving-sessions-wrap-up...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Solar will get too cheap to connect to the power grid</title><url>https://climate.benjames.io/solar-off-grid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roenxi</author><text>&amp;gt; When there’s enough surplus energy supply from renewables, prices can even go negative. That&amp;#x27;s great news for consumers - who get paid to use energy - but it&amp;#x27;s bad news for renewable generators.&lt;p&gt;That isn&amp;#x27;t correct, it is just bad news for everyone. Sure if there was a &lt;i&gt;sustainable&lt;/i&gt; deal that offered negative prices that&amp;#x27;d be good, but in this case it just means the prices when positive will have to go up to cover the overall profits of the energy producers. Negative prices represent waste and it is quite unusual for waste to be good for consumers.&lt;p&gt;Although this is a minor point. The solar revolution is pretty exciting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AndrewDucker</author><text>Negative pricing will lead to people building storage which can make use of it to charge, and then sell back when prices are positive again.  It&amp;#x27;s an excellent signal of opportunity.</text></comment>