Re:Power Prices Go Negative in Germany
by Reason077 on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @04:51AM
(#16013856)
"if it happens often, that means that you've wasted resources building too much generation capacity."
It's not wasted capacity. It's the nature of wind turbines that in order to have enough to supply a grid on an average wind day, you're going to have an excess of energy production on a really windy day.
Wind turbines are relatively cheap, so to some extent it may be cheaper to build more of them than to build energy storage capacity, even if it means that there is an excess of energy at times.
It's not wasted capacity. It's the nature of wind turbines that in order to have enough to supply a grid on an average wind day, you're going to have an excess of energy production on a really windy day.
Wind turbines are relatively cheap, so to some extent it may be cheaper to build more of them than to build energy storage capacity, even if it means that there is an excess of energy at times.