[evgen]

This is because in energy production timing matters. If you over-produce and dump your energy into our shared grid then I must throttle back my base load production, and then when the sun goes down and you do not have enough capacity to handle your needs and require me to increase my production so that you avoid brownouts then your energy production plan is flawed. If the only way you can make your energy production look acceptable is 'on an annual basis' then your plan is pushing the negative externalities onto your neighbors.

[jessaustin]

Is the German army involved in this dastardly scheme? How else could one explain the atrocities of international power distribution that you describe?

Oh, right, there are contracts for all of this stuff. Power companies freely negotiate how they sell power to each other. "Externalities", try again.

[JanezStupar]

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-gree...

When they have their surpluses - they are actually paying their neighbors to take power from them. I.e. they are selling it at a negative rate.

When the renewables are offline - they are paying a premium for electricity from fossil fuels.

While Germany does indeed _produce_ stellar amounts of renewable energy. They are completely dependent on their own and neighbors fossil power production.

Thus they can claim that they are "exporting" renewables. The turth is that their renewables infrastructure and the retarded system of incentives they have set up - result in one of the most expensive electricity prices in the world: https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-elect...

Notice how the more renewables a country has - more expensive the electricity is.

Why? Because renewables are really not all that ecological as the activists would like to claim.

Simply because renewables cause more problems than they solve. And the surplus resources spent (or rather wasted) on "green" energy are also a form of energy. Thus one can argue that "green" energy is actually a net contributor to pollution - due to the aforementioned externalities.

Until we get insane amounts of storage (which will also pose a significant potential for pollution) - green energy industry is actually contributing to problems.

And while you are sarcastic - current state of affairs is not due to common sense or economics. But due to politics.

[ldp01]

But it's a private market? the only people who should be suffering are those who own generation equipment which can't keep up with the higher rate of change of dispatch. E.g. Steam turbine operators.

I think your point has some merit if the net effect is higher power prices overall. Unfortunately I don't have this information...

Either way, the reality is that renewable technology is making the slow-ramping generators uneconomical. Even if you remove wind-farms from the supply side of the equation you still have roof-top solar eating into the demand side and creating a daily demand profile which requires gas/liquid fuel generators to match.

I've seen a recent example of a cool summer day (Australian) where the daily demand minimum actually occurred at mid-day due to coincidence of maximum roof-top solar generation and low air-conditioning use! Under this kind of scenario your nuclear/coal steam turbine will be running at a horrible financial loss...