An incredible but true story
ΜIt may seem unbelievable to us, but it is absolutely true. This incident took place in 2016 in Germany where the country had so much renewable energy that consumers were paid to use electricity.
According to data from the German Energiewende, the weather conditions and strong winds made the wind, solar and hydroelectric power plants produce 54,6 GW, ie about 80% of the power consumption throughout the country.
As a result, the price of electricity reached negative levels negatively from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m., reaching -130 € per MWh at 1 p.m.
The reason for the negative energy values is partly attributed to the rigidity of the system. When renewables that produce so much power, some conventional units may be temporarily unplugged. However, nuclear power plants and coal-fired power plants can not shut down quickly and it is often cheaper to waste electricity than to go through the process of shutdown and restart later.
Watch the video with the incident: