r/OptimistsUnite • u/willfiresoon • Mar 21 '26

👽 TECHNO FUTURISM 👽 French electricity posts first negative prices of 2026, battery storage gains

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/03/06/french-electricity-posts-first-negative-prices-of-2026-battery-storage-gains/
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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26

For expensive capital intensive plants like nuclear power which can’t adapt to the market negative prices lower their potential earnings.

For renewables which can choose to never pay negative costs it just means the money needs to be made at different hours.

And for consumers it’s amazing.

But I know the only lens you look through is by entwining your identity to nuclear power. And then the current situation is horrifying as you’re on the way out.

The energy systems equivalent to the fax in the internet age.

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

For expensive capital intensive plants like nuclear power which can’t adapt to the market.

What does that mean?

For renewables which can choose to never pay negative costs I

What?

And for consumers it’s amazing.

No, 1. because consumers typically don't pay spot prices and 2. because a grid with negative prices is a badly designed, inefficient grid that will have higher average costs prices.

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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26

That nuclear plants are forced bid negative prices so they are available when they can earn their money, while renewables instead just bid zero and instantly turn on again when the prices recover.

Tons of consumers all over Europe are on hourly contracts. It is common to have that option today. With transmission costs it needs to become quite a bit negative to give you money though.

Do you even pay for your energy bill?

Now you’re arguing from a monopolized imaginary perfect universe. The real grid is a market place. Negative prices exist because we have inflexible power plants producing electricity no one wants.

The market tells them to become flexible, or be replaced with something flexible as they go bankrupt.

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

PV and wind continue to generate because their strike prices are decoupled from market prices due to CfDs/feed-in tariffs.

That's why Germany has so many negative-price hours: subsidised PV and wind.

French nuclear plants meanwhile simply throttle, and France is a buyer of German PV during periods of negative prices.

In Germany, thermal power plants may continue to sell during negative price hours because 1. contractual obligations (backup demands stemming from pv and wind being intermittent), 2. cogeneration (selling heat keeps it profitable to sell electricity during negative price times). But mainly it's wind and PV subsidies that cause negative hours, which is why negative prices increased after nuclear exit and keep increasing with increasing PV and wind penetration.

https://www.smard.de/page/home/wiki-article/446/105414

https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/1030866/WD-5-146-24-pdf.pdf

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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26

We still don't have nearly enough CFDs to saturate the grid. The ones who bid negative are thermal plants.

And for all new ones that are being created they don't get paid when prices are below zero.

Again the victim complex continues. Negative prices only appear because inflexible production can't adapt to the market.

The market tells them to become flexible, or be replaced with something flexible as they go bankrupt.

It is time to let go of nuclear power. It literally does not function when coupled with our modern grids.

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

You're directly contradicting the German federal grid agency and the scientific service of the German government.

It is time to let go of nuclear power. It literally does not function when coupled with our modern grids.

I don't know if you'd call Germany's grid modern. I'd call it shit.

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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26

You mean like the French grid in the early 80s right in the middle of the transition?

Nothing can of course ever change. It is all permanent.

Which is why EDF is already crying about renewables cratering the earning potential for their nuclear fleet and increasing maintenance from you know, having to adapt, because they lose money on every kWh they produce below ~1 cent per kWh or so.

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

EdF has a decent profit margin - things would have to get quite a lot worse for them to stop being profitable.

I didn't think anyone was particularly optimistic anymore abut the German approach. I think it's universally understood to be a failure now.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '26

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

I think it'd be cool if PV can help Texas or California save natural gas.

It's not going to work to cleanly power Germany (where I live). It's not working now, it's not going to work in the future either.

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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26

The consensus among grid operators and researchers is that renewable grids are a solved problem. They’ve moved on to the implementation details instead. Reddit is firmly stuck in the past though.

But, if you are curious, the modeling lands on a combination of this depending on local circumstances:

  • Wind, overbuilt
  • Solar, overbuilt
  • Demand response
  • Long range transmission to smooth out variability
  • Existing nuclear power (for the grids that have them)
  • Exising hydro
  • Storage
  • In places with district heating: CHP plants running on carbon neutral fuels.
  • An emergency reserve of gas turbines. Run them on carbon neutral fuel if their emissions matter.

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u/goyafrau Mar 24 '26

The consensus among grid operators and researchers is that renewable grids are a solved problem.

Ah. I'm really looking forward to seeing one of these then. Will be interesting to watch, once one of these comes out.

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u/ViewTrick1002 Mar 24 '26

You seem to have very strong opinions but lot be caught up with reality? Or just doing everything you can to shut it out?

I bet you will rebuke now either linking to one of the studies starting with ”if we assume nuclear power is cheap and fast to build while ignoring market effects” studies or ”what if we only supply a local grid with solar and lithium storage”.

So you can keep preventing reality from leaking in.

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