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Comment by philipwhiuk | Hacker News Reader

The assumption that Europeans can just absorb high energy prices is crazy. Ought to be a national imperative to invest in infrastructure to lower prices.

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The problem there is the "national imperative" part imho. All EU politicians are hell-bent on ignoring any kind of market-based solutions, doing everything through regulations and picking winners. So there will never be a proper market equilibrium and therefore prices will always be higher than in places without all those regulatory interventions.

Investment won't help there in any way, because if that investment were worth it, it would already happen because of market forces. If it doesn't happen on its own, then the state (doesn't matter which level) has to do it, which means using tax money, which means that prices will rise. So that state investment will further skew the market equilibrium, putting the EU further behind.

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. There is currently a lot of demand for building out solar and wind in Germany. There is also large demand for building battery storage. The demand especially for the latter comes from the mismatch between supply and demand in electricity markets, so in a sense the battery operators hope to do arbitrage in a way that will also increase the efficiency of the market (by allowing the use of solar after dark).

This is very much a market-based solution. What the state has to do is provide permits and stuff for getting the batteries etc. actually built; which the state is doing but not as fast as it could right now. (at least in Germany)

It would be a market-based solution if the state wouldn't interfere with the markets in major ways. E.g. many battery projects in Germany are nonviable due to the fact that some less-efficient but cheaper battery technologies are verboten. Meaning the market gets screwed again. There are also fees and taxes on power transit that are set up in such a way that energy storage is disadvantaged compared to energy production, especially gas-based energy production. Hydro storage e.g. is comparable to gas peaker plants in the quickness of powering up/down, but hydro storage pays transmission fees twice, once to charge, once to discharge...

What battery technologies are banned??? While being good except for efficiency?

Also all the regulations are based on hardcore ideologies. EU truly wants to be carbon neutral and that is applaudable, but at what cost is the question. Does is make sense to decimate most of the energy heavy industries in the continent to be carbon neutral? I guess only time will tell.

Lol. Depending on the country and who the buyer is, 50-80% of energy prices are taxes and levies. Those prices have nothing to do with missing infrastructure.

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