There is never surplus power with a network of a few "turn it on as needed" intensive industrial uses like haber-bosch reactors for ammonia, dessalination plants and electrolysis for aluminium or other metals...right?
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Generally not, no. Most manufacturers would rather turn it off as needed rather than turn it on as needed. Unpredictable outputs require unpredictable staffing rosters, introduce more risk into plant operations and does not give confidence to customers ("we need to delay your shipment").
Desal would need very big reservoirs to be able to erratically run, but perhaps that is done off peak in some places? Aluminium is complex, you can't let it cool too much otherwise you risk the whole process solidying (no recovery, requires rebuilding entire smeltery).
But it's somewhat wasteful to build an entire industrial plant that's only run at 10% capacity
No, it's not. It's a practical problem, not an economic one, but leave it to the tankies here to take it as an opportunity to show how many slogans they have learned.
So why was the problem expressed in economic terms? The practical problem isn't "oh noes there's a price label with a minus on it"; it's that there's a surplus of power which is dangerous.
In reality what that represents is an opportunity for someone to come in, and store the excess power, and sell it back to the grid when supply is lower -- but energy companies only want to model the flow of money going one way.
Is supporting the fire department "tankie" to you? Lmao
I wasn't talking about a fire department, and neither were the tankies so I'm not sure what you're on about
Except it'd be much less of a practical problem if the question "but who gets paid" would be taken out distributing excess energy.
How about this: power generation and distribution is not as easy as you think, it requires lots and lots of infrastructure and maintenance and that has a cost. If prices go negative too much it might become a problem to keep that running. There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?
Negative prices are short-term self-regulation reactions of the market, they can't stay negative long-term, just because of how the system works. So I'm not sure what you're worried about.
Also, cut the condescending tone, it does nothing but make you look like an asshole.
Condescending is what you get when you make everything into your favorite enemy
I agree, if the point had been we didn't have enough energy storage at the grid scale to accommodate the excess power I would agree with that. Instead, it points out the price.
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