The grid always needs to be in balance to remain at a stable voltage and frequency. If you have too much supply or demand, you will destabilize the grid and it will eventually shut down to protect equipment. Negative energy prices mean the grid operator expects so much excess power on the supply side that they need to artificially raise the demand. In other words, they pay people to use – sometimes waste – energy they otherwise wouldn’t.
There’s plenty of useful ways to spend that extra energy but nobody really wants to invest the time and effort to do so.
Which is why grid operators will pay anyone who will find a use for that energy during peak solar generation
I will gladly take a grant to build a powerful railcannon to shoot corrupt politicians and billionaires into space.
Yeah and it’s really unfortunate that batteries don’t exist in real life.
Batteries exist, but they won’t do you much good when they’re full.
Man, you would think somebody would have invented something that could regulate voltage in the last three centuries.
Oh. Wait a minute…
