【电力市场】负电价-来自经济学人的评述
首先贴出The Economist 2026年6月6日刊 Finance & economics 版块「负电价」原文及翻译。
Energy prices-Peak negativity
能源价格–负电价之巅
European electricity markets are learning to deal with too much power
欧洲电力市场正在学会应对电力过剩
When European regulators were tweaking the continent’s wholesale electricity markets some years ago, they added a price floor to short-circuit trading snafus. At minus €500 ($580) per megawatt-hour (MWh), it was more of a price basement. It was set so low in order to be triggered only in exceptional circumstances. May 1st, when bright sunshine and strong winds met low demand for electricity from Europeans enjoying a public holiday, may have seemed pretty ordinary. Yet the wholesale electricity price in Germany reached minus €499 per MWh. If this translated into retail prices, you would pocket €50 for charging your electric car.
几年前，当欧洲监管机构调整大陆批发电力市场机制时，曾设置了价格下限，以防交易故障。彼时设定的负500欧元（约合580美元）/兆瓦时的下限，与其说是地板价，不如说是“地窖价”——定得极低，意在仅极端情况下才会触发。然而今年5月1日，明媚阳光与劲风恰逢公众假期，欧洲用电需求低迷，看似平常的一天，德国批发电价却骤降至-499欧元/兆瓦时。如果此价格传导至零售侧，你给电动汽车充个电，反而能赚进50欧元。
For economists, the number zero is not particularly special. If a price needs to be negative to clear a market, so be it. Solar plants and wind farms produce power at near zero marginal cost when the sun is shining and wind blowing. But because that is not necessarily when people need power, and because it is costly to stop producing, they may need to pay someone to absorb the excess electricity. As more renewables plugged into Europe’s grids in the past few years, the number of hours during which buyers in the wholesale market, such as utilities and heavy industry, were paid to take electricity started rising.
在经济学家眼中，零并非什么神圣不可逾越的界限。若市场出清需要负价格，那就顺其自然。太阳能和风能电站一旦日照充足或风力强劲，其边际成本近乎为零。但此时未必是人们需要用电之时，加之停机成本高昂，发电厂可能不得不倒贴钱请人消纳多余电力。随着近年来可再生能源大规模并网，公用事业公司和重工业等批发市场买家获得“付费用电”补贴的时段开始显著增加。
Obviously, negative prices offer a strong incentive for anyone who can store electricity and then sell it for more than nothing when demand returns. In sunny California, where batteries are replacing fossil energy to cover the evening demand peaks after charging during the day, the number of hours with negative prices started to decline last year. Across much of Europe, May Day notwithstanding, it is beginning to plateau (see chart 1). The market, at last, is adapting.
显然，负电价为所有储能主体提供了强大激励：只要能将电力储存起来，待需求回升后再以高于零的价格卖出即可。在阳光充沛的加利福尼亚，电池储能系统正取代化石能源，在白天充电以覆盖傍晚的用电高峰；得益于此，当地负电价出现的时长自去年起已开始减少。纵观欧洲大部分地区，尽管五一当天情况特殊，但总体趋势已初现平台期迹象（见图一）。市场终于开始自我调适。
Europe’s installed battery capacity rose by 33,000MWh in 2025, to 90,000MWh or so (see chart 2). This is enough to store as much energy as all of Europe, including Britain, generates on average every quarter of an hour. BloombergNEF, a research firm, forecasts that capacity will rise by another 55,000MWh this year, enough to absorb roughly another ten minutes’ worth.
End electricity use is also being successfully shifted into the cheaper hours of the day. Dynamic tariffs, which better reflect prices on wholesale markets, are becoming more popular, especially with owners of heat pumps and electric vehicles. Since January 2025 German providers have been required to offer customers at least one dynamic tariff. One Danish study found that though regular households mostly do not adjust demand to varying prices, those that use lots of electricity do. Another study that looked at German data from 2015-19, when those exposed to variable prices were mostly heavy users such as industry, found that price changes of about €25 per MWh led to shifts in demand of about 4%. A recent analysis by McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons that commercial and industrial consumers in Europe could save €8bn a year by 2030 if they made use of varying prices.
终端用电也在成功地向低价时段转移。能更精准反映批发市场价格的动态电价机制正日益普及，尤其在热泵和电动汽车车主中备受青睐。自2025年1月起，德国供应商被强制要求至少向客户提供一种动态电价方案。一项丹麦研究发现，虽然普通家庭大多不会随价格波动调整需求，但高耗电用户群体则会做出响应。另一项针对2015至2019年德国数据的研究显示（当时主要面向工业等大用户实行浮动电价），电价每变动约25欧元/兆瓦时，需求侧会产生约4%的转移。咨询公司麦肯锡近期分析认为，若欧洲商业和工业消费者善加利用分时电价，到2030年每年可节省80亿欧元。
Electrons can move across space as well as across time. That requires strong grids. Europe is belatedly getting serious about expanding these. A new cable installed last year between Sweden and Finland is one factor explaining why hours of negative prices are, California-like, already declining in both countries. The Bay of Biscay interconnector between France and Spain is under construction and due to be completed by 2028. In 2025 Germany approved plans for 2,000km of new power lines, an increase of 45% from the year before.
电子不仅能在时间维度上迁移，也能在空间上流动——这需要强大的电网支撑。欧洲终于开始认真推进电网扩容。去年瑞典与芬兰之间建成新的输电通道，正是两国负电价时长出现类似加州式回落的原因之一。连接法国与西班牙的比斯开湾互联线路正在建设中，预计2028年竣工。2025年，德国批准新建2000公里输电线，较上一年增幅达45%。
So far in 2026 only 40 hours have been priced below minus €50 per MWh in Germany, to the relief of grid operators (who are on the hook there). Spain has had none. As the market continues to adjust, wholesale prices near zero will become more common. And with more variable tariffs, people’s electricity bills will reflect this. As they face rising inflation—which reached an annual 3.2% in the euro zone in May, owing to high oil prices—Europeans can draw comfort from that sunny prospect.
文章谈论了欧洲负电价情况，由五一假期风光大发对应较低的电力需求导致供过于求的情况引入，结合发电侧电厂的启停成本远高于弃风弃光成本，发电企业仍然“亏本”发电，使得部分时段电力市场出清形成负电价。
文章也提出了近年来负电价时段持续增多的情况下，储能的发展、用户侧需求响应以及跨国电力互联互通等方式助力消纳了过量的新能源，也减少了欧洲各国负电价的发生时长，维持了系统的安全稳定。
这些都反映了电力市场价格机制的调节作用。一是在电力市场价格的引导下，储能通过低价消纳、高价放电的方式，实现电力资源的短时存储，在解决新能源大规模并网的消纳问题的同时，激励储能参与削峰填谷，也促进储能的投资。二是负电价的影响传导到了终端用户上，引导用户侧资源在低价时段多用电、高价时段少用电，当然文中同样提到工商业用户仍可进一步挖掘其潜力。三是在大电网下，潮流从负荷高处流向负荷低处，通过调动电力资源在更大范围内流动实现更优的配置。
文中提到的方法均是时下主流的观点和处理方式。当前，在国内批发侧负电价情况也时常发生。
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文中提到的储能盈利方式仅为电能量市场价差，当前在136号文取消新能源强制配、114号文建立电网侧独立储能容量电价机制以来，储能的商业模式发展为“电能量市场价差套利+辅助服务+容量补偿”的主要模式。进一步细化则可分为共享储能、独立储能、配储等模式，通过容量租赁及服务、独立参与市场、联合风光/售电公司/虚拟电厂等主体，不断开发出新的模式，充分为新型储能的真实价值定价。
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与文中提到的用户侧需求响应效果相似，我国零售侧及终端用户对于电价的弹性较低。例如国内大量由电网代理购电的用户，代理购电价格组成中电能量价格降低、但系统运行费增大，且采用月滚动的方式进行结算与电价公布，在用户侧仍带有一定的“计划”性质，仍有待进一步完善。而零售市场上套餐合同签订时，往往参考历史价格或中长期价格，用户对于价格波动感知不明显，这类小规模用户的响应潜力还可通过代理聚合的方式进行内部平衡，或是通过零售合约约定价格传导的方案，实现各方主体“1+1>2”的效果。
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文中提到的大电网输电通道的建立有助于促进消纳、缓解负电价的产生。通过建立全国统一电力市场，实现资源互济是一条有效道路。但不同省之间的壁垒仍较大、规则存在差异、发电成本不一致，且全国电网规模巨大，暂不具备“统一申报、统一出清”的条件。加之新投产的特高压输电通道仍需几年时间建成，在大规模极端气象事件发生的情况下，否能有效应对全国性气象事件及出力的不确定性、维持系统韧性，仍有待研究。
负电价本质是市场行为，电力现货市场通过“负电价”传导信号，进一步引导市场主体的行为。出清电价部分时段的“尖刺”正是市场这双“无形的手”发挥作用的体现，而规则的限价、中长期合约的签约比例也是降低风险的政策需求，保障了我们既能发现价格、也能控制整体价格风险在合理范围内。各类主体应通过利用价格的波动发现其价值，开拓创新，通过合理运营和生产生活，应对市场价格。在如此“互相促进”下，才能更好实现削峰填谷、实现资源跨时间、跨空间的优化配置。