I've never quite understood negative electric/gas/oil prices.

Are you literally paid for agreeing to receive the energy?

Yes. Counterintuitive, but it make sense when you take all the factors into account (such that completely shutting down and then later restarting turbines may cost a generator more than paying someone to take power off their hands).

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robin_reala 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yep. Last August the total cost to charge my car for the month was -10SEK of about -$1.05 US, as my energy company was trying to put load into its batteries at the times when the grid most needed it.

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wing-_-nuts 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

>my energy company was trying to put load into its batteries at the times when the grid most needed it.

I'm not sure I understood this sentence?

	▲	toast0 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Grid had too much production and needed somewhere to put it, so they paid the GP to put the energy into GP's car. On an electric grid, Supply and Demand must meet. When demand is low, you either reduce supply or increase demand and sometimes it's easier to increase demand. Also, if you're supplying electricity, you may have reason to supply it even when the wholesale cost is negative. If you have production incentives not included in the wholesale price, you can be profitable at negative wholesale prices. (Things like green incentives, or base load incentives, or long term supply price guarantees) If significantly reducing your output takes time or causes operational difficulties, it may be sensible to deliver at negative prices as you taper off. If you have a fuel shipment inbound and nowhere to store it, the negative wholesale price may be less expensive than cost to deal with the storage logistics.

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vlovich123 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, if you’re a battery in the system. Basically discourages generation because there’s too much supply. But this generally doesn’t trickle to consumers afaik.

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testdelacc1 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Easiest to understand with oil. During Covid the price of oil went negative. So you’d be paid if you bought that oil.

Sounds like a great deal right? But now you’re on the hook for receiving and storing that oil. That costs money, it’s not free. That’s why the price went negative - the seller was trying to offload and there were no takers at $0.