[jamanon]

Germany actually needs to pay other nation states around it to take the energy they can't use (they don't want it). Using the energy intelligently (demand managment) only lowers smoothes the energy spikes of renewable energy only by 11% (when you do it monthly, on a daily base its nearly nothing.) Pump stations are a good idea but the amount of pumpstation we would need only for the current German electricity demand exceeds already what you could build in all of Europe.

Currently when there is a lot of wind we stop coal burning power plants and the government pays its owner for what they could have been produced in that time. Because stopping the plant makes it more inefficient, there are some fix costs around it to operate it.

See this interesting video about the topic (its in German sorry): https://youtu.be/ZzwCpRdhsXk