this is good, not bad

[solarbird]

It’s hilarious to me that this is being presented as a bad thing:

Germany has too many solar panels, and it’s pushed energy prices into negative territory.

NO, it does NOT. Power export and increased electrification will solve the “not making money” part and it will be awesome.

Somewhere I had but misplaced an “oh noes” article about the price of used electric cars starting to come down and that’s also being presented as a bad thing and once again I am asking why is this bad, affordable electrics are good, absolute turnip of a journalist.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[dewline]

Yeah, I'm not seeing the problems with this either.

[armiphlage]

At least in Canada, a significant portion of grid power is used for heating and cooling. There are already simple solutions for exploiting time-of-day differences:

Slush tanks. My old factory had this. When electricity is cheap, try to freeze a tank of water. When electricity is expensive, use the icewater to meet your cooling needs.

Thermal batteries. A friend of the family had this in her house. Put a simple electrical resistance heater in a box full of sand. Surround it with insulation. When electricity is cheap, heat the sand until it is red-hot. When electricity is expensive, and your house is cold, blow air through the hot sand to heat it.

[canyonwalker]

Journos often misunderstand technology and economics, let alone the intersection of the two. They fall into thought-traps of "Oh, woe is this person hurt by a change, the change must be bad!" plus believing simplistic falsehoods repeated often enough by people who peddle them for power and profit. To your point, the dropping prices of EVs have been widely framed in the news as a repudiation of EVs-- if they're becoming cheaper, it can only be because "nobody wants EVs anymore". Nevermind that primary reason used EV prices are dropping is because Tesla lowered its prices on new EVs as it is hitting its production targets and is now ready to sell more units. More supply = lower prices, economics 101.