Europe's Green Energy Transition Faces Unexpected Hurdles

Energy prices across Europe fell below zero for a record number of hours in 2024. An accelerated buildout of large-scale wind and solar farms has flooded European grids at peak production hours, causing surplus energy to be sold at a loss at increasingly frequent increments, for a grand total of 7,841 hours during the first eight months of this year. At their worst, prices have fallen below -€20 per megawatt hour, according to the consultancy ICIS. While rapidly expanding solar capacity is the main culprit for the price inversions, a decades-long…