Yesterday my son topped of his girlfriends car to 100% (from 10%) for $6 at a Tesla supercharger. This is in the Phoenix area. The trick is that it was done late in the evening when tiered electrical rates were low. I figure a similar gas vehicle would cost nearly 10x this price.

This brings up a point that seems to be seldom discussed. The rapid build out of renewable electricity sources such as solar and wind present some unusual opportunities. Solar in particular is being built out to supply power for air conditioning in places like Texas and Arizona. What happens to all of that electric power generating capacity in, say, winter, spring and fall? This isn’t like coal or gas fired generators that can be turned off to save costs. There is no additional cost to solar and wind once it’s installed. They just keep making electricity. What would you do with vast amounts of free electricity? Sounds far fetched? It is already starting. Europe had negative electricity prices at times last week. I don’t worry about the technology side of things, but I do worry that our existing economic structures may have trouble handlimg this sort of surplus, especially in the short term.

Power prices dip to negative in Europe amid clean energy boost

Haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else. Would have expected outraged headlines in Texas newspapers at least. Some of these people were already making over $500k per year. But I suppose it was all done on the 4th on July for a reason. From something called RTO Insider. It doesn’t look like fake news.

Texas PUC Approves ERCOT Board’s 83.9% Pay Increase