> why nobody is doing anything about it
> I've read somewhere
Before wondering why someone, somewhere is not doing something, confirm that the thing is actually happening in the first place.
> I've read somewhere
Before wondering why someone, somewhere is not doing something, confirm that the thing is actually happening in the first place.
The "competition" are resellers that have not installed a single MW of production, essentially leading to starving what used to be the most talented and biggest energy producer in Europe, all under the pretense of the free market. The resellers are actively dropping clients so they do not have to not buy on the open market.
It is happening, and is happening with the blessing of our leaders just greasing billionaire pockets.
Or, said in other ways, it took an extremely rare event that lasted long enough to throw off plans that are made on the scale of years, in addition with a bit of bad luck, and lasts a few months. I'd say they damn well can produce electricity in normal times, yes. But indeed, their need to buy electricity is compounded by that.
By whom?
* I choose energy provider x
* Friend has bought a part of those remote solar plants and also connected to provider x
* Friend sells his surplus energy to provider x at low price
* Provider x can now sell the power to:
a) His customers (me), and make next to nothing
b) Sell it to the international grid and make bank, then proceed to buy energy for me at going rates making me foot the whole bill.
Guess what happens, and who gets rich. This is market liberalization at work. You reap what you have sown.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but why can't he sell at the going rate for international grid?
So in essence, because they can't get it there.
Sounds like good investments are paying off, and bad investments (Germany collaborating with Putin despite Trump’s prescient advice & mockery) are not.
Capitalism at it’s finest! Too bad average people are paying the price, but in democracy, that’s literally what they voted for (non-sensical top-down EU bureaucratic green energy mandates, instead of investments into better tech & bottom-up sovereign energy investments).
Funny, I remember when we had similar discussions about negative electricity prices and people mockes those capital intensive legacy producers. Well, history is so old and context too complex to bother if polemism does as well.
Doesnt seem like a bad outcome tbh.
Also the people that are “making all the money” now that power prices are super high, stood to loose money if power prices were super low, why shouldn’t they be compensated for bearing that risk?
That’s not what is happening. If Austria was an isolated market the prices were significantly lower at the moment. But I would not want to separate the markets just because it works out better to us at the moment.
There were also a couple of curious deaths happening in the industry (the head of our State-owned hydro company, who died in his late 30s, the local boss of a power utility, who just threw himself from his balcony), but nothing came out of that, either.
Most probably part of the huge proceeds end up in the accounts connected to our intelligence agencies (the heirs of the former Securitate, which have split into several agencies after 1990).
Countries like Norway, which have abundant, cheap, generation, are paying EEA prices in its highly interconnected bidding zones (NO1,NO2). The next few months, if prices persist, are likely to see lots of pressure from Norwegians to curtail exports (i.e. close off transmission capacity to EEA). This would significantly decrease prices for Norwegians, but damage the EU's integrity. The same can be said of other countries with abundant, cheap generation that are suffering the consequences of other EEA countries' actions w.r.t their electricity supply.
I say this as a supporter of the EU, but the integrated electricity market's future is in peril this winter.