As noted in the article, wind power is highly variable, but other sources have the opposite problem: Slow ramp up and ramp down times.
If you're running a massive coal plant (and nuclear is ten times worse), you can't just turn it off for 5 minutes if the last 5 minute auction didn't go your way. Even if you think the next 10-20 auctions won't be economical for you to win and you start the shut down process, you'll still need to get rid of that power you're generating in the meantime.
What (probably) happened is that the a combination of high wind production and low demand meant the system temporarily had a surplus of power, and some (non-wind) producers actually were selling power at a loss just to get rid of it because they couldn't wind their systems down fast enough. Which is a much more interesting story than "federal government subsidies wind". Shame Slate didn't talk about it.
If you're running a massive coal plant (and nuclear is ten times worse), you can't just turn it off for 5 minutes if the last 5 minute auction didn't go your way. Even if you think the next 10-20 auctions won't be economical for you to win and you start the shut down process, you'll still need to get rid of that power you're generating in the meantime.
What (probably) happened is that the a combination of high wind production and low demand meant the system temporarily had a surplus of power, and some (non-wind) producers actually were selling power at a loss just to get rid of it because they couldn't wind their systems down fast enough. Which is a much more interesting story than "federal government subsidies wind". Shame Slate didn't talk about it.