Germany produces enough renewable energy to pay consumers

Due to sunny and windy conditions, on Sunday 8th May 2016 Germany supplied 55GW of the 63GW (87%) being consumed using its solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants.

This is a new peak for the country in generating renewable energy, and as a result power prices inverted to negative for a few hours i.e. commercial customers were being paid to use electricity.

According to Agora Energiewende, a German clean energy think tank, last year the average renewable mix was 33%. With new wind power developments, this average should increase.

Christoph Podewils, director of communication at Agora commented: “We have a greater share of renewable energy every year. The power system adapted to this quite nicely. This day shows again that a system with large amounts of renewable energy works fine.”

However, the power surplus is not entirely beneficial, reports business news outlet Quartz:

“The system is still too rigid for power suppliers and consumers to respond quickly to price signals. Though gas power plants were taken offline, nuclear and coal plants can’t be quickly shut down, so they went on running and had to pay to sell power into the grid for several hours, while industrial customers such as refineries and foundries earned money by consuming electricity.”

Agora Energiewende www.agora-energiewende.de/en