Portugal Runs on 100% Renewables Dropping Consumer Electric Bills to Nearly Zero for 6 Days in a Row

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 361 points –
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Portugal Runs on 100% Renewables Dropping Consumer Electric Bills to Nearly Zero for 6 Days in a Row::In total, there were 149 hours of total renewables generation, 95 of which saw the Portuguese grid exporting to Spain

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I'm pretty sure I still pay all the renewable energy I consume at home. I wish the bill was zero, that would be amazing.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the article means it comes at zero cost to Portugal, as a country, thus not having to import it. It would be fairly misleading though.

It still Should cost.

Renewable is far from free

it comes at zero cost to Portugal, as a country, thus not having to import it

i'm always confused by this. does this include traditional fuel or just the electric grid?

Nope, all of Portugal now only has electric vehicles. No air planes, only zeppelins and hot air balloons. No boats, only floaty arm bands, rafts, canoes, and kayaks.

feeling edgy today, aren't we?

Our electric company charges 25% more for renewables.

Ah, the old "I'm sucking your money tit as long as I can while my industry dies and I refuse to innovate with my profits" tax.

There research and infrastructure costs. It's not like it's free.

Thats the "refuse to innovate with my profits" part I said

And? It still is going to cost money.

Companies have obtained tons of public money for research, then charge extra for the research investment. Its a joke.

Correction, it has already cost us money, except the people receiving it were not responsible with the money.

I constantly hear about or see data that solar and wind power are quite a bit cheaper than other methods by now.

Still costs money. It's never going to be free.

Well, in the short-term, yeah. But for the mid- to long-term, it's quite a traditional investment. Pay some money now to build renewables and decommission coal power plants, but eventually break even, because the running cost per kWh produced is quite a bit lower.

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Yea I was curious about that, is there a certain amount that's paid for? If it was all free, it would incentivize some people to exceed normal usage

As I understand, this happens when renewables 'overproduce' and we need to get rid of the power somehow. People can gladly use as much power as they want in that case. Even if someone fills up batteries for free to later sell back into the grid when production normalizes, that is actually very much what we want. It just adds storage capacity and ensures prices will stay low for longer.

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