Negative electricity prices occurred in Switzerland for a few hours the other day - just a few months after electricity prices reached absolute record highs. Private consumers in Switzerland, however, do not benefit directly from the novel phenomenon.
On windy and sunny Sundays, when wind turbines and photovoltaic systems produce a lot of electricity but little is needed, European electricity prices, and thus also Swiss prices, temporarily fall into the red.
This is not necessarily bad if industries are able to adapt to run their machines during the parts of the day when electricity is cheaper.
But it also shows that renewables are only part of the story. We really need decent steerable energy sources. The problem might become even worse if hydro runs into problems with glaciers melting.
I believe storage is most concerning. Other than pumping water up into reservoirs for later we don’t have any great way to store a lot of energy
batteries do not have enougt capacity. The can bypass a day - maybe two. However, we need a solution to store energy during the summer to use it during winter. And as for now, this is only possible with pumped storage power plants.
