French renewables boost causes negative electricity prices…

[Alan Ambrose]

Wind and solar glut forces 6 French reactors to shut temporarily:

 

https://fortune.com/2024/06/16/electricity-prices-france-negative-renewable-energy-supply-solar-power-wind-turbines/

 

I wonder whether there will be some future intervention on the electricity marketplace to reduce this kind of grid instability?

[Andehh]

Yep, smart meters and smart home energy management.

 

When over supply in the grid, homes intelligently increase consumption, when demand peaks homes intelligently stop consumption.

[joe90]

Instability? Surely this is a good thing turning off power plants in favour of renewables ? I am sure it will take some juggling to balance the network.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> Instability? Surely this is a good thing

 

I imagine the nuclear plants are already bugging the French regulator suggesting that they have to pick up the cost (and risk?) of wind and solar putting random spiky amounts of power onto the grid. That is 'it was all very safe and stable until the new boys came along'.

[SteamyTea]

France is interconnected directly to it's geographic neighbours (including the UK).

 

The way I see it is that the problem lies with the European grid (tends to be point to point) which makes it hard to move electrons around (bulk transport).

The Europe Supergrid will alleviate much of this problem, but it is still being built.

I am not sure how the UK fits into the plans now, I suspect we will be a major part of it as we have a very robust electrical grid and we can take, or deliver vast amounts quickly, cheaply and efficiently.

But the UK needs to spend close to £200bn on the National Grid infrastructure rapidly (short distant to distribution points) if we are to decarbonise.

Or just build (expletive deleted) off big wind and solar farms next to existing power plants.

It seems strange to me that to built/replaced existing industrial power generation infrastructure with renewable energy systems needs to go through planning.

Imagine if you had to pay, to ask for permission, from the local council to change your old polluting car to a new EV, knowing that the default position would be refusal.

How the (expletive deleted) did the UK get into this position, what kind of (expletive deleted) are we that we allow elected local councils to dictate, by refusal, national and economic infrastructure projects.