I imagine it’ll shift the mentally on electric heating (mainly through heat pumps) first. People have been outright hostile towards it, but once energy’s free or negatively priced at peak, people will want to make the switch. People who own a large reservoir and a decently sized battery might be able to not pay for any heating or electricity in a good month.

As for industry, those that can allow for flexible production schedules will and in parts already have adapted to fluctuating energy prices. Whether that means less production in winter, or just adjust workflow so peak demand is during peak supply

I’ve wondered about this too but it depends on how the utilities choose to structure pricing. Traditionally, negative energy prices have mainly existed in the wholesale market, not for individual energy consumers. But if that situation becomes more common, there may be incentives to adjust pricing structures.

That said, it utilities stand in the way and solar becomes cheap enough, it might start to make sense for energy-hungry customers who have the space to just build out their own system on site.

I am really hoping this can be a game changer for desalination because water shortages are already a major issue in arid places and those problems are not getting better any time soon.

Nuclear is centralized, so it’s not great for energy security. It also relies on the organization running the reactor and securing waste to be run effectively, not cutting corners for the sake of efficiency/profit. It has all of the same problems with mining and manufacturing solar does, so it doesn’t win there either.