[msandford]

I don't think you understand how this stuff works in reality at the moment.

Perhaps the system could be changed to be more like how you imagine it should work, or would prefer that it would work.

But not understanding how it does work and jumping off from there on the discussion means that folks end up talking past each other, rather than actually communicating.

[ccalloway]

You didn't directly address anything I said in my post or explain why you think I am poorly informed..

I used to work for National Grid in the Miliband era; I worked, among other things, on theorizing a replacement to the 'circle diagram' for the (then thought to be) coming renewables regime.

[msandford]

>> Because the wind providers have already sold that electricity in an energy auction. So the grid has to pay them for electricity, even if they can’t use it.

> This isn't a real economic loss.

Perhaps I'm misinformed on what economic loss is. To me, paying for something and not getting it is a loss.

I go to movies, I buy popcorn, I spill popcorn. Movie theater says "tough noogies" to me that's a simple economic loss, and roughly the same. I paid for it, I didn't get it.

Worse still is paying for curtailment on both sides. From the article:

Consumers end up effectively paying three times for the power they’re getting: the original payment to the windfarm for the electricity, the payment to turn off, and then the payment to the alternative generator.

If this is true, and you're both paying a turbine operator for the power, and then again to not produce the power, well that's extra worse. That would be the initial economic loss (I paid for the thing and didn't get it) with an fee tacked on top.

I go to movies, I buy popcorn, I spill popcorn. Movie theater says "tough noogies" to me and doesn't replace the popcorn. They also charge me a fee for cleaning up the popcorn I spilled. That's worse from what I can tell.

Again maybe I don't understand what's going on here with respect to how precisely curtailment works. But it's hard to imagine that the situation

> So the grid has to pay them for electricity, even if they can’t use it.

is anything other than an economic loss.

[ccalloway]

Obviously my original example, "saying that if you don't need to go to hospital while on vacation, you have wasted money on travel insurance" perfectly fits your definition of economic loss.

[msandford]

I'm not sure I follow.

> Claiming it is, is tantamount to saying that if you don't need to go to hospital while on vacation, you have wasted money on travel insurance.

I see where you're going with the example. I don't think insurance is a good example though, because insurance is decidedly different, at least to my mind.

If you pay for insurance, you got insurance. You're not prepaying for medical treatment, you're paying a small fee to be made whole again if the trip goes sideways. If you paid for insurance and didn't need to use it, you still were insured and got the peace of mind that comes with knowing you either A) have a great time on your trip or B) don't pay for an entire trip that you don't get.

Paying for curtailment is directly paying for something that you directly don't get. No intermediaries, no risk model, no nothing.

If I'm failing to understand, well, OK then! Great! Please do inform me. You rightly stated that I called you misinformed without backing it up. If you're going to say that your original example is obviously correct, maybe try explaining it then?