The 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 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.

It 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).

Is 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.

I 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".

which 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.

Considering 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.

Wait, if they invest too much, then natural gas will not be needed, and prices will steeply fall. So better not invest (too much), right?

By “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).

I’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.

The 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.

The 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.

Isn'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!

To 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.