zlacker

>>Capsta+(OP)
This happens frequently in the UK too, if you have a compatible supplier you can set it up to charge your EV or some batteries during negative spikes. Ultimately if enough people were set up that way then prices would not get negative I suppose.

* https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

>>Neil44+qf
I wonder how many people need to do that in order for it to become not negative.

>>risyac+Ng
That's pretty much the whole dilemma now with decarbonization. We know how to generate electricity very cheaply with solar and wind. We just don't know how to do it at the right time.

It will take a lot of investment in storage tech (beyond lots of people using their EV car batteries as time-shifting storage, though that's certainly a good use!) in order to get prices smoothed out so that electricity generated at 1PM can be used at 11PM.

>>hn_thr+Zh
> We know how to generate electricity very cheaply with solar and wind. We just don't know how to do it at the right time

I’m not sure this needs to be a goal to be honest.

It’s more practical for us to become accustomed to agile tariffs and have our own batteries + charging the car when prices drop than to hope for large scale storage solutions. In the UK the average solar install now includes batteries as prices come down on them.

We can already do this today fairly easily, and with open tariff APIs plus more integrated devices it will become easier.