For example, only gaz-based electricity producers « needs » to be paid such a high price. Nuclear or renewable would be perfectly fine with much lower price.
Or, if we had not one market, but one market per type of energy used to produce electricity, we would also have a « market driven » pricing, however the end-result would likely be much much different.
There's some amount of market preference for different generation types, but that's a small portion of the load, so it's handled outside of the grid operation marketplace. It's also true that grids with limited interconnection have separate markets.
You could run a grid on a cost plus basis, but you lose the benefits of market economics as well as the negatives.
Some sellers will get more than they offered, but that's how the auction works, there can only be one market price to secure the given quantity of electricity.
Electricity isn't optional. "The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized. In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it.
Any sufficiently big scam can waived away with "the market has spoken". It's like a religious belief
food isn't optional either. How well did nationalized food production work out?
>"The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized.
I can get the source for each of those claims? Some of them seem dubious, eg. housing. Was housing ever not privatized?
>In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it.
well if we're talking about "energy" in general (ie. not just electricity), I can point out a counter-example of PDVSA going to shit after it was nationalized.
If you really want to challenge your view, I'm sure you can read a book that lays it out better than I could in a quick YC comment.
For example, here's Chomsky's take:
"Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a recession. Throw out the work force because that's the way you make money."
However, if we'd paid a little more attention to Noam's points about war (clandestine and overt, economic and military) and the media a few decades ago, we the people would be tens of trillions of dollars better off.
Millions of brown skinned folk would still be alive, tens of millions wouldn't have had to become refugees, and South America would be immeasurably better off.
If you have some kind of beef with Chomsky I suggest you take it up with him; I hear he's quite good at responding to people.
If you're making electricity that cheaply right now you are indeed getting rich, and so you should.
The market is what is doing something about it. Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and as consumers reduce their usage due to high prices.