Here in the Netherlands we have some energy companies offering dynamic tariffs. Basically it means that the price is high when the demand is high, and on contrary, the price is low when the demand is low. When the energy supply is greater than the demand the prices can become negative, I.e. -0.05 ct per Kwm
And the negative price is what amazes me. It means you earn money by using electricity. So in theory I can built a giant hamster wheel which will be powered by electricity only when the price is negative, and it will make profit. Free money for doing nothing
Does anybody knows how negative energy prices work?
In: 3
You could, but you’re already behind the curve as there are plenty of places already hooked up to do this automatically
The grid is powered by a bunch of spinning generators, in Europe your generators will be spinning at 3000 or 1500 RPM (50 Hz). If you put more demand on the grid the generators will slow down a bit until the plant can start burning more fuel and generating more steam to get them back to 3000 RPM. Similarly if demand drops the generators will speed up until the plant can cool down a bit. For big changes it could be a matter of completely starting up another plant or completely shutting down a plant which both take a while..
This is annoying for the plants and if the frequency gets too far off normal (>1% or so) it can start damaging the hardware so power companies incentivize customers to help them balance supply/demand
Industrial and commercial buildings will have communications with the power company already set up. This is generally used in the summer for load shedding where the power company sends a signal that causes all the office building ACs to slow down a bit to reduce load, but it can also work the other way
Its basically “hey, precool your buildings to keep the grid happy while this unit uses up the last of its steam”
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