Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem.
wapo.st
As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power.

I’ll note that right now, this is a seasonal issue, associated with moderate springtime temperatures when there is a lot of sunshine available.

  • @RvTV95XBeo
    22•28 days ago

    I’ve got a pretty easy fix, just pass those negative rates on to the consumer. I’d be happy to teach my car to charge when the price goes negative, but noooo, utilities are the ones double dipping on negative power rates.

    • @[email protected]
      15•28 days ago

      In Finland that’s what we do (if you have a ‘market priced’ contract). I have my heating set up so that it will ‘overheat’ my apartment when power is very cheap, effectively using the interior space as a rudimentary thermal battery.

      There was an incident a few months ago, that caused power price to became absurdly negative, someone made a wrong bid and people used 90M€ worth of power in a few hours as a result.

    • @[email protected]
      10•27 days ago

      Allow the free market to behave like it’s supposed to when it benefits the little guys? You must be joking, we don’t do that here.