The South African Civil Society Information Service

The Day the Electricity Price Dropped below Zero in Germany

8 Jul 2014

On a single Sunday in May this year, Germany was able to obtain nearly 75 percent of its electricity from renewable resources. By noon that day, electricity prices went negative. Small producers such as small businesses, families and co-ops are producing large amounts of wind and solar energy at near zero marginal cost, which is fed into the grid. Renewable energy technologies have sprung up in tandem with information technology heralding a move away from energy being supplied by large power plants to a more distributed and significantly cheaper energy network. Germany’s utility companies look set move away from being energy suppliers to becoming facilitators of energy distribution -- facilitating energy distribution from many small producers or "prosumers" to consumers with varied needs.

The Real News Network talks to Peter Sinclair, creator of two video series on climate change, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, and This is Not Cool. Sinclair is media director of the Dark Snow Project.

© The Real News Network

Editors Note: You may also be interested in watching Birthing a Solar Age, a new documentary by Peter Sinclair, which highlights the emergence of distributed renewable energy networks and the remarkable impact these are having on bringing down the price of electricity.

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Read more articles tagged with: zero marginal cost, Jeremy Rifkin, renewable energy, climate change.

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