> Those "slow to ramp" plants are necessary to provide the base load. The cause of the overload is the volatility of renewables.
Sure, that's true. But what I'm saying is that negative prices don't impact the rollout of renewables because renewables never have to pay them. And in a market with lots of renewables and no distortions, prices won't go below zero anyway.
> But what I'm saying is that negative prices don't impact the rollout of renewables because renewables never have to pay them.
How do you know? Do you have source on that? It doesn't stand to reason that the cost of excess electricity produced by renewables should be carried by anyone else but the producers of such electricity. It's true that these overshoots wouldn't exist if coal or nuclear plants could be regulated quickly, but it's also true that if these plants didn't exist, nothing would make up for the underproduction.
> And in a market with lots of renewables and no distortions, prices won't go below zero anyway.
Alright, let's assume there's zero cost to curtailment (not true, but close enough) and that excess energy is only produced because the compensation structure works that way: You still have wasted potential energy from curtailment. Increasing the rollout strictly increases that waste. Therefore, it is reasonable to put that energy into fuel production, especially considering that the best combination of volatile renewables today is natural gas, which can be regulated quickly.
> How do you know? Do you have source on that? It doesn't stand to reason that the cost of excess electricity produced by renewables should be carried by anyone else but the producers of such electricity.
If they're acting on normal motives, they won't produce any excess specifically because they would have to share in paying the cost.
At least with any kind of bid for production system.
I could imagine a system where negative or too-low prices trigger targeted punishment, as far as I know that would be very different from what we have. For a normal market, if prices go too low then renewables can just say "okay we're offering zero power to sell right now".
> You still have wasted potential energy from curtailment. Increasing the rollout strictly increases that waste. Therefore, it is reasonable to put that energy into fuel production, especially considering that the best combination of volatile renewables today is natural gas, which can be regulated quickly.
Sure, that's true. But what I'm saying is that negative prices don't impact the rollout of renewables because renewables never have to pay them. And in a market with lots of renewables and no distortions, prices won't go below zero anyway.