[apendleton]

Anything you could do it with it would have capital costs. Maybe it's transient enough that that money would be better invested elsewhere. Like, if you only run your cryptocurrency mining when the price is negative, your capital is stuck in an idle asset most of the time, and if you run it all the time, it's the average price you want to consider, not the minimum price (even if the minimum price is negative), and my guess is that Australian electricity isn't cheaper on average than other kinds of power other places (especially places with lax environmental regulation).

Another way to think about it: uses like those you propose that can soak up excess energy in the grid are exactly why energy markets are allowed to float, and even to go negative. If there's a surplus, they want you to use it, and if it were economical to store it and sell it back to the power company later, both they and you would benefit. That this isn't common suggests that it isn't economical.

[_AzMoo]

> and my guess is that Australian electricity isn't cheaper on average

South Australian electricity is actually some of the most expensive in the world due to incredibly high transmission costs.

[jussij]

Historically South Australia has generally had the most expensive electricity in Australia.

The Australian Energy Minister, Mr Frydenberg has even placed some of that blame on the SA Government's and it's "self-inflicted wounds" on deciding to transition away from coal to clean energy.

However, in the article above has there is a link to this page:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-had-lowest-cost-...

which states:

The renewable energy state of South Australia recorded the lowest prices in Australia’s main grid in October, a month when it sourced well over half of its it's electricity supply from wind and solar.

That would suggests that transition to clean energy is working out just fine.

[londons_explore]

Multi-megawatt electric heaters don't cost much. In fact, I could make a backyard megawatt power sink in an afternoon for just a few hundred bucks. 1 mile of 22 AWG bare copper wire strung through the air should do the job. When turned on, watch the whole lot glow red hot like a big space heater.

The reason people don't do this is that the cost of a grid interconnect (the paperwork, approvals, etc.) outweighs the profit from the very short periods of time the price really is negative.

[solotronics]

There are older bitcoin ASIC miners that aren't nearly as efficient but if you are getting totally free electricity... definately an opportunity here.

[bseidensticker]

Yes this happens.

[iknowalot]

Yea shutting off anything that is producing free electricity to keep a market price stable is moronic....

[Leherenn]

It's not to protect market price, it's to protect the grid. You basically need to use as much power as you produce, if this becomes imbalanced, you damage the grid.

In this case, demand is lower than supply, so either you decrease the supply (shutting down the solar farm here), or increase the demand (lower the price). Because this is transient, and some powerplants (e.g. nuclear) take time and effort to shut down, for those operators it is cheaper to pay you to use their energy during those times (negative prices), than to shutdown/restart when needed.