Netherlands generated record amount sustainable electricity this spring

More than half of the electricity produced in the Netherlands in the past week was generated from sustainable sources. As a result, the Netherlands broke another sustainability record this spring, the Volkskrant reports.

Friday and Saturday both ended up in the top five days on which the most green electricity was generated in the country. That top five now consists entirely of days this year thanks to favorable weather and a substantial increase in solar panels and wind turbines. For a few hours on Easter Sunday, for the first time, more green electricity was generated than the total amount of electricity used in the Netherlands. That's happened a few more times since. 

Green energy generation is excellent news for the Netherlands' climate goals but is also causing some problems for energy providers. Providers increasingly have to pay to supply their power to the grid. In the past few days, energy prices were negative for no less than 17 hours due to the enormous supply of green energy. That happened on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, during the afternoons when a lot of solar energy is generated, and relatively little energy is used. In the evenings, prices were significantly higher than average. 

And grid operators have to take expensive measures to prevent significant energy peaks and dips from disrupting the balance in the grid. Tennet, the operator of the high-voltage grid, issued an "alert" four times in the past two weeks to signal that deviations are occurring and action may be needed. All four times had to do with the green energy flow. On Friday, for example, many wind turbines were suddenly shut down due to thunderstorms. Solar energy also dropped suddenly due to passing storm clouds. This resulted in an acute shortage of electricity, which Tennet had to rectify by relying more on gas-fired power plants. 

Such operations cost Tennet a lot of money, which is ultimately passed down to the consumer via the electricity bill. According to the newspaper, the Netherlands will have to invest heavily in the grid in the coming years to make sure it can cope with the growing sustainable power production.