The Daily Populous Wednesday June 19th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by fortune.com and submitted by dect60

French electricity prices turned negative as a drop in demand and surging renewables output prompted some nuclear reactors to power down.

Daily consumption from Thursday through Sunday is seen falling by an average 6 gigawatts, a Bloomberg model shows. Sunny and blustery weather has driven up solar and wind generation, prompting the grid operator to request that Electricite de France SA take several nuclear plants offline.

While more clean power is needed across Europe to reach climate goals, soaring renewables output and a lack of battery storage mean reactors sometimes have to be turned off during periods of low demand. It’s becoming increasingly common around weekends in France — which gets about two-thirds of its electricity from its atomic fleet — and also occurs in the Nordic region and Spain.

EDF halted its Golfech 2, Cruas 2 and Tricastin 1 nuclear plants, and plans to halt three others during the weekend. Some renewables producers will also have to curb generation to avoid paying a fee amid negative prices.

French day-ahead power fell to -€5.76 a megawatt-hour, the lowest in four years, in an auction on Epex Spot. Germany’s equivalent contract dropped to €7.64.

candiedbug on June 19th, 2024 at 02:03 UTC »

Meanwhile in my home state in the US you can't disconnect your home and use solar strictly because that would be "unfair" to the power co. Oh and if the grid goes down, since you can't disconnect from the grid, you have to turn off your solar generation to avoid backflow.

Loyal9thLegionLord on June 18th, 2024 at 21:42 UTC »

We got a few panels installed last summer, our bill is normally negative 3 usd.

fanau on June 18th, 2024 at 19:59 UTC »

How do you get negative prices. I mean how does this play out? People get paid to use energy? Doubt that. Heh. I read this article somewhere and wondered what exactly this would mean in real impact?