this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Oh hey, that's my specialization! I'm a programmer working on software for energy providers to control the power grid (both electric and gas), manage and plan incoming/outgoing energy as well as perform the legally required communications related to those tasks (calculations, reclamations etc.)
Long story short: this is a bullshit take. While yes, solar power does produce "too much" energy at certain times, most if not all countries in the world are still reliant on non-renewable energy during the night. The solution is not to piss away the solar power, it's to store it for when it is needed.
Oddly enough, here in the UK prices tend to go negative at night on windy days. I make more money storing that and selling it back to the grid later by force charging/discharging my solar batteries than I ever would through crypto mining
And nobody that invests in specialised mining chips is going to turn them off most of their life. They're a huge capital investment that needs to be used within months before the next generation of chips is there.
They'll typically just go to an area with cheap round the clock power, like near a dam or somewhere that has cheap fossil fuels.
Sounds reasonable, but shouldn't businesses be allowed to make their own decisions how to use surplus power? Like mining, building storage capacity needs significant financial and other resources.
In the case of energy providers: no, absolutely not. As the power grid is a natural monopoly, the owners of that grid need to be strictly regulated. They are not "businesses" in the classical sense, as their actions have consequences that reach way further than any business decisions should.
Also, do you think energy providers don't already have vast financial resources..?
The "power grid" doesn't produce power, it distributes it. If you meant electricity generation https://www.statista.com/statistics/185088/us-electricity-generation-through-independent-power-producers-since-2000/
Do you really think that renewable energy startups have vast financial resources?!
You sure have a creative way of reading. No, I mean the power grid, the literal cables in the ground that distribute power. There is no alternative option to using them, thus they are a natural monopoly. The fact that non-government entities own them (at least here in Germany, maybe the rest of the world is better) is a problem, because they are not subject to market forces or market competition and are thus incompatible with free market principles.
What you have in mind is the energy market, which is a more or less fictional entity that is overlaid over the energy grid to emulate a free market on top of it. Although energy producers are free to "sell" their energy on the energy market, they are not allowed to "insider trade" by directly selling to anyone. They are also either heavily taxed on energy they decide to use themselves or fully forbidden from doing so. The reason for that is that such practices would disrupt the market in a way that hurts the actual humans that are the end-cosumers of the energy by raising the prices for no other reason than profiteering.
Energy Providers and Energy Producers are different entities. Energy Providers are the companies who own, maintain and build the Grid, while Energy Producers are the Companies making the energy. Energy Producers don't invest in research beyond what is directly beneficial to them. (There's also an intermediate management step called Bilanzkreisverwalter in German, idk what their English name would even be. They direct Energy Producers on a smaller scale.)
So, by "renewable energy startup" you mean something like a solar or wind park? Those businesses are free to sell their energy on the market for a fair and reasonable price. As far as I've talked to colleagues who work in such parks, their reality is that they make a reasonable profit and pay fair wages to their employees and contractors. I wouldn't call them as vast as the resources that Energy Providers have, but they're perfectly fine for average businesses. To be quite frank, buying some solar panels and putting them in a field isn't exactly the most complicated or unique business plan. It's surprisingly good income for how simple it is.
Ok, your comment is starting to make sense. Germans like their power generation centrally planned.
we sure do lol
Yup, and that's why you get some of the highest power prices in the world.
The Market does a piss-poor job of handling things like climate change and other 'tragedy-of-the-commons' type problems.