Negative prices have no effect on grid stability. It just means that the day-ahead market was cleared below 0, i.e. for every consumer (buyer) there is a producer (seller) selling at this price. The market is still balanced with consumption==production.
Now, you can ask the question: Why are so many producers willing to sell below 0? That has to do with misplaced incentives. For older or home-installed renewables there is a feed-in tarrif which guarantees a fixed revenue at all times. So there is an incentive to sell even for negative market prices. Newer installations can't opt for the guaranteed revenue model with revenue during negative prices any more.
Redispatch follows afterwards, if the market result clashes with physics: The physical grid can't transport the power from producer to consumer. There was no unusual amount of redispatch during easter.
As if negative prices trickle down to the consumer. The electricity market is byzantine, rigged and has resulted in higher energy prices in the last 20 years.
For absolutely no good reason bidirectional charging in Germany is still forbidden. Electric cars could be used to store and buffer the overproduction of electric energy. But no, the german burocrats forbid this solution. Ridiculous!
> In 2024 we estimated that had Germany not decommissioned nuclear power after the Fukushima accident, it would have needed 50% less electricity generation from fossil fuels, 84% less generation from imported natural gas, 27% less fossil fuel capacity and 42% less natural gas capacity. Another road less traveled: Germany’s electricity prices in 2024 were almost 25% higher than they would have been had the country kept its nuclear power online . And as shown below, Germany might not have experienced such a sharp increase in its electricity imports which are 2x higher than a decade ago as a share of consumption.
> More nuclear shutdown repercussions: Germany’s industrial power prices were 3x higher than the US and China in 2024, and part of the reason why Germany has been experiencing the deindustrialization shown on the right.
On the positive side we in Norway have 10x higher energy prices because we now have to export energy to Germany during the winter and then our water storage is empty in the summer so we get fucked both ways as well.
For anyone thinking negative prices is a good thing: It's not. It's a panic signal because there are no takers for an oversupply of energy, making the grid unstable.
98 comments
Negative prices have no effect on grid stability. It just means that the day-ahead market was cleared below 0, i.e. for every consumer (buyer) there is a producer (seller) selling at this price. The market is still balanced with consumption==production.
Now, you can ask the question: Why are so many producers willing to sell below 0? That has to do with misplaced incentives. For older or home-installed renewables there is a feed-in tarrif which guarantees a fixed revenue at all times. So there is an incentive to sell even for negative market prices. Newer installations can't opt for the guaranteed revenue model with revenue during negative prices any more.
Redispatch follows afterwards, if the market result clashes with physics: The physical grid can't transport the power from producer to consumer. There was no unusual amount of redispatch during easter.
Source: I work on this stuff.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/clouds-shield-german-po...
But that is only reserved for the big players I guess.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/72h/hourly
That shows that they still had roughly 5% gas and 5% coal running at the lowest price point.
> Excess electricity produced during periods of low consumption cannot yet be stored at scale, as battery capacity remains limited.
From JP Morgan's 16th Annual Energy Paper, March 2026
https://cdn.jpmorganfunds.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/...
> In 2024 we estimated that had Germany not decommissioned nuclear power after the Fukushima accident, it would have needed 50% less electricity generation from fossil fuels, 84% less generation from imported natural gas, 27% less fossil fuel capacity and 42% less natural gas capacity. Another road less traveled: Germany’s electricity prices in 2024 were almost 25% higher than they would have been had the country kept its nuclear power online . And as shown below, Germany might not have experienced such a sharp increase in its electricity imports which are 2x higher than a decade ago as a share of consumption.
> More nuclear shutdown repercussions: Germany’s industrial power prices were 3x higher than the US and China in 2024, and part of the reason why Germany has been experiencing the deindustrialization shown on the right.
On the positive side we in Norway have 10x higher energy prices because we now have to export energy to Germany during the winter and then our water storage is empty in the summer so we get fucked both ways as well.