It’s still not earning you money to spend electricity because you still have to pay the transfer fee which is around 6 cents / kWh but it’s pretty damn cheap nevertheless, mostly because of the excess in wind energy.
Last winter because of a mistake it dropped down to negative 50 cents / kWh for few hours, averaging negative 20 cents for the entire day. People were literally earning money by spending electricity. Some were running electric heaters outside in the middle of the winter.
And when the sun and wind aren’t active?
People will point to a few hours of negative energy prices as if it’s a triumph, but it just proves that there’s still nowhere near enough storage for renewables to provide baseline power.
They are not the only forms of electricity generation.
That is a serious issue. Under the hood the power grid is being reengineered to solve it. Lot of battery storages, pump lakes, and may be hydrogen conversion. Still this is an open issue. I love to follow the discussion in blogs and podcasts.
I think what people always forget is, that water energy exists. It is a form of renewable energy that has the potential to provide baseline power, since it isn’t that dependent on short term weather. I think in Spain they have a water power plant that produces as much energy as several nuclear power plants together.
Indeed, that’s why Hydro assets are generally already used to the greatest possible extent. Nuclear is needed to supplement that baseline power. The problem is with Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) not renewables as a whole.
That’s why I added this, because it wasn’t specifically stated.