[jakehop]

The Danish legislation is setup in such a way, that all electricity consumers pay a tariff to cover the guaranteed electricity prices to owners of wind farms.

Still, Denmark often sold electricity for pennies on the dollar – or literally for free – to Norway, who in turn used the energy to pump more water into their hydroelectric dams. This energy was then sold back to us, at (higher) market rates, whenever the wind died down and Denmarks needed to import electricity, due to its inability to produce enough electricity to cover its own demand.

Often, when Scandinavia is getting a lot of wind, you can even see electricity prices going below zero. In some of those cases, you can sometimes see a group of wind turbines, where some are spinning at great speeds and other are completely still. This is in order for the producers not wanting to pay to get rid of their electricity.

While it is a shame that the storage problem isn't solved yet (except in the case of our shrewd Norwegian neighbours), I don't really fancy waiting for that to happen, when other options are (or rather should be) on the table.