Trading across borders seems to be a part of this story.

If your local price is high you can import, if it's low you can export.

If you're at the end of a grid and/or your transmission capacity is limited your price has the possibility to go higher or lower without that damping mechanism.

Electricitymaps has a pricing layer which seems to show central Europe moving in sync when I randomly check it:

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/live/fifteen_minutes?sig...

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tonfa 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And the counter intuitive thing is that people in countries with lots of renewables and not so many external links (e.g. Scandinavia with hydro) might be against adding more links since it will increase electricity prices.

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joe_mamba 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So energy in Spain is cheap because they produce a lot but can't sell a lot easily, and Austria/Central Europe is expensive because they sell their domestic energy too easily?

If this is what you meant, then it sounds like an argument against free trade, if it means you keep ending up with the short stick.

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HPsquared 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Free trade doesn't always benefit everyone equally, only a net benefit overall. It's a bit like how people often misinterpret the second law of thermodynamics "but the entropy decreased when the ice froze!"

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ZeroGravitas 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Economists would say that the money coming in outweighs the higher costs and therefore you could redistribute that money and everyone comes out ahead.

Whether that happens in real life is a different question.

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joe_mamba 11 hours ago | parent [-]

>Economists would say that the money coming in

Does that money go directly into my pocket so I can afford the more expensive energy? Or does it go into the pocket of private energy companies?

Because I feel like there's some faults with this "free market", which is mostly just socializing losses and privatizing profits.

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HPsquared 11 hours ago | parent [-]

And what if the energy companies are owned by foreign investors?

	▲	joe_mamba 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That would be economic colonialism with extra steps. But for the end user, whether you're being ripped off by a local or a foreign energy oligarch, it doesn't really matter, people just want to pay less.

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ViewTrick1002 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Electricity is expensive in Central Europe because the ETS system (carbon trading) has made fossil based production expensive.

We’re right in the middle of the transition with maximum volatility swinging between extremely cheap renewables and expensive fossil plants.