alt Hacker NewsThat’s just a consequence of how they bid. The marginal cost for a renewable plant is zero. It’s non-zero for nuclear power.
But nuclear power don’t want to shut down since that both increases wear and tear and makes them unable to capture revenue when the prices become higher again.
So they bid negative expecting to eat the losses and let more flexible plant shut down first.
Operating costs of wind power are for sure not zero. Especially repairs of offshore wind turbines are very expensive.
https://docs.wind-watch.org/offshore-availability-costs.pdf
Hydropower and solar have much lower operating costs.
All thermal power plants experience wear and tear and have to be regularly repaired and maintained. Nuclear power plants can load-follow (within technical limits), but as the operating costs (maintance, repair, staffing, fuel) are much lower then capital costs it makes economic sense to run them at full power.
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-revue-deconomie-politique-2025-...