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there are no circumstances under which it makes sense for energy prices to actually be negative. it is a sign of a market behaving very badly. propping up prices by intentionally wasting energy only treats the symptom not the cause.

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It’s only ever brief and essentially a penalty to power generators for not turning off the generation in a reasonable time

In most markets, it happens because one player is being given some subsidy - ie. 'we will guarantee all power you sell sells for $X/MWh', or 'You get a contractual green bonus of $$$ if you produce XMWh this year'.

Those contracts mean the person producing the power is still incentivised to do it even with negative prices.

exactly. all i'm saying is that if you have this problem it makes way more sense to pay the offending party to stop producing excess power (or fine them for not stopping) than it does to pay someone else to intentionally waste it.

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