Germany chalks up major power export profits despite negative prices

Power exports at negative prices are a growing phenomenon in Germany but the country still makes a substantial profit by selling excess electricity abroad, Malte Kreutzfeldt writes in the Tageszeitung (taz). In 2017, Germany exported power worth 3.3 billion euros and imported the equivalent of 1.9 billion euros – thus maintaining a positive trade balance of 1.4 billion euros, Kreutzfeldt says. Power prices were negative for 146 hours, or 1.6 percent of that year, and cost about 41 million euros, only a fraction of the total profits, he adds. However, “politicians use the figure to talk renewable energy expansion down in the context of coalition talks”, Kreutzfeldt says.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet The causes and effects of negative power prices for background.