6 ms·
> 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 actual
by capableweb 4y ago
> 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.
- neverrroot 4y agoThis. Exactly this. Truth is old school.
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoI have no clue about Czechia but that’s basically happening in Austria. Austria mainly produces energy from renewables which did not go up in price buy since the price on the exchanges is determined by the most expensive source we still pay exorbitant prices. Producers are making all the money right now.
- tomp 4y agoBy “producers” of course you mean “those producers that invested in sovereign energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, …)” 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).
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoI’m not sure what you are trying to say. The reasons for the energy prices have nothing to do with any European bureaucracy. If anything more investments into green energy would have put us into a better position.
- google234123 4y agoThe European bureaucracy is what dismantled all the old cheap energy production and forced massive investment and massive subsidies in renewable energy that can't actually cope with the real load.
- hef19898 4y agoIsn't the inability of nuclear plants to keep production up part of the problem? If anything, the screwed up electricity markets in Germany killed oil and gas plants by favoring flexible production costs. And there it is solar/eind followed by hydro and coal on third. Germany even built new coal plants, the latest of which didn't get a legal construction permit and thus operations oermit in the first place. Bad environmentalists, paid by Putin to push for any energy source other than gas for electricity!
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoThe drivers of high prices are broken nuclear power plants, high gas prices due to a war and record draughts causing issues for hydro. None of these are caused by European bureaucracy.
- hef19898 4y agoTo use your words, Germany already collaborated with the good old old communist USSR under Brechnev. Thing is, so, Germany isn't using Russian gas (which was delivered reliably since the 60s) to produce electricity but for heating, industry and chemicals. 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.
- chii 4y agowhich would give more producers (and wana-be-producers) the incentive to invest in renewables to take a piece of that profit pie. Doesnt seem like a bad outcome tbh.
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoConsidering most Europeans won’t be able to afford electricity and there is no increased investments into renewables as a result of this insanity it looks like an abysmal outcome. In fact it’s so bad that very likely it will slowly set into motion all kinds of bad workarounds that will utterly destroy the economy.
- seydor 4y agoWait, if they invest too much, then natural gas will not be needed, and prices will steeply fall. So better not invest (too much), right?
- balderdash 4y agoThe marginal cost of production didn’t go up for renewables, but that’s not the price setting mechanism, the Austrian people demanded more electricity than renewables could provide, so the price rose until it was high enough to justify turning on the gas fired plants and where the Czechs and Germans would be willing to sell power to the Austrians… 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?
- the_mitsuhiko 4y ago> the Austrian people demanded more electricity than renewables could provide, so the price rose until it was high enough to justify turning on the gas fired plants and where the Czechs and Germans would be willing to sell power to the Austrians… 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.
- paganel 4y agoIt has been happening here in Romania for more than a decade now, our previous president even called them out as “the smart guys from the power industry” (where “smart” was used in a derogatory way), of course that nothing came out of it all. 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).
- mbg721 4y agoIs that a recoil from the Eastern-Bloc era worship of intellectuals, or is it completely separate, or something else? Americans are often accused of undervaluing people who pursue intellectual professions and propping up "Joe the Plumber," which is why I ask.
- paganel 4y agoI think it dates to before WW2, it's the spirit of "he was smart enough to fool the State/those in command, he deserves all our respect".
- bitL 4y agoOK, what's the truth then? I am not an expert on this, though just today I saw some LinkedIn post of some trader explaining merit price on energy market and in the chart the nuclear power was two orders of magnitude cheaper than gas/combined power but the final price was at the level of gas/combined power.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- agarsev 4y agoIn Spain (and according to a sister comment, in Austria too, so maybe it's EU-wide) the price of every MWh is set by the last MWh that enters the market (apparently it works like an auction). The last to be sold is the most expensive, thus renewables are being priced like combined due to this rule. In fact there was some scandal in Spain I seem to remember because apparently energy companies were doing the expected according to the incentives set, which is manipulating production so that combined is always used, increasing profit by doing nothing.
- thrwaway9871 4y agoNot Czech but how it works here: * 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.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago>Friend sells his surplus energy to provider x at low price Sorry if this is a dumb question but why can't he sell at the going rate for international grid?
- maxerickson 4y agoThe grid operator won't make an agreement to move a little bit of power that is advantageous to the small producer. So in essence, because they can't get it there.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoSounds like they're exploiting their monopoly over the connections that small producers need.
- maxerickson 4y agoSure, more or less. But there are real costs and financial costs of getting the power to the other market, and they are probably being forced by regulation to buy the power at all (prices won't always be tipped in the one direction).
- ohgodplsno 4y agoEDF, the French electricity provider is able to produce electricity at about 20€/MWh. It is forced to sell it to leeches (read: "competition"), up to 100TWh, at 42€/MWh through a mechanism called ARENH. Should they need this 100TWh (and they do), they are forced to buy it at current market prices, or anywhere between 530 and 715€/MWh. 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.
- bombcar 4y agoEnron was in the wrong market!
- bitL 4y agoOK, you have confirmed my worries there is some well-connected mafia operating in that market.
- legulere 4y agoCan they produce electricity though? Half their nuclear reactors are down.
- ohgodplsno 4y agoBecause of delayed checkups caused by COVID, and thanks to the independence of the ASN who could unilaterally stop the plants to fix unplanned corrosion. Most of them are starting to come back up, and 90% of usual production is planned to be back by December. 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.
- sph 4y ago> It is forced to sell it to leeches By whom?
- mirko22 4y agoDon’t know about other countries but several people were arrested today in Croatia cos of similar business practices:)
- hhjinks 4y agoNo idea about the Czech, but that's exactly what's happening in Norway. Due to trade agreements with the EU, we can not discriminate between national and EU customers when selling electricity. To be completely accurate, we aren't selling on a German exchange, we're selling on local ones, but those local exchanges are experiencing price pressure from EU customers due to export capacity recently being increased due to the completion of several new power cables to the EU and UK.
- DIARRHEA_xd 4y agoThe grandparent could have done a better job explaining what she meant. You've explained it much better. EU rules forbid discrimination between domestic and EEA customers in electricity markets. Therefore, any significantly interconnected country to the rest of the EU will have similar prices. 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.