Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables

Re:Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables by joe_the_user on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @02:13PM (#11904035)

It seems bizarre that industries that like low energy prices aren't taking advantage of this. I think that's fertilizer production, aluminum production, bitcoin mining, and I assume a lot of other things.

I assume the reason is that these "negative prices" are just fictions, only available to a few select existing customers, ie artifacts of regulation.

But the article is actually too vague for me to understand what the actual regulatory and political constraints of the situation are.

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Re:Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables by crdoconnor on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @03:07PM (#11904474)

They are. I remember reading in particular that aluminum producers in Germany were scaling production up and down in response to renewable output.

They seem pretty press-shy about it though - possibly because this is serving as a kind of covert subsidy that wouldn't look too good under WTO rules.

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Re:Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @02:55PM (#11904374)

I think it's mostly that they are transient. So not yet enough to build an entirely new business model around. Possibly it acts as a minor incentive for coal plants to invest in upgrades to let them ramp down faster, or for industries to sign up for demand response, as they can make money by both increasing or decreasing demand when asked by the grid.

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