zlacker

>>RobinL+(OP)
Curtailment, like negative prices, seems like something that it is hard for people to have constructive conversations about.

Probably the cheapest and best option is to build more wind and not care too much if it increases curtailment.

Yes, all the things mentioned should be looked into and done when it makes financial sense but "wasting wind" is much less a thing to worry about than "burning gas", and I'd rather waste wind than waste money.

>>ZeroGr+k8
I understand that curtailment is needed to incentivise private businesses to invest in wind when the output and demand can’t be correlated, but if the government owned the wind farms then it wouldn’t matter if we wasted right? We could just always be overproducing and wouldn’t have to pay for it.

>>mattco+fa
Assuming a competitive market, the outcome is essentially the same right? If the government builds more than would be economic for a private company they're paying the extra through construction costs/maintenance/financing that they would have been paying to incentivise the extra turbines.

>>morepo+nc
Except if the government owned it then there is no profit motive to begin with. At one point the number of intermediaries does start mattering (though I imagine that power suppliers are lower margin than other businesses)

There are a lot of details about... I suppose organizational theory? Which makes the decentralization nicer. But profits come from somewhere