That it is treated as such speaks volumes to the craft of the people designing and maintaining the grid.

Unfortunately in Britain at least politicians are absolutely dead set on taking the piss / abusing this by e.g. adding huge amounts of subsidy and stealth taxes into what should be price discovery mechanisms (or for example when was the last time you heard someone talking about how cheap renewables are and discuss the CfD schemes).

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tialaramex 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> when was the last time you heard someone talking about how cheap renewables are and discuss the CfD schemes

All the time? Every single HN discussion about this ends mentioning CfD, often as if it's some secret nobody knows about even though the CfD strike prices are often headline news when they're agreed.

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mhh__ 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I've basically only just seen this stuff started to be discussed critically in the media in fairly recent years.

not including $work discussions with energy traders.

	▲	tialaramex 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> in fairly recent years Although this financial instrument dates from late last century, its use in energy markets is much newer, the UK began using CfDs for electricity about a decade ago. So, yeah, if you recall conversation about wholesale electricity prices back in 2010 they wouldn't have mentioned CfDs for the same reason they didn't mention the effect of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it hadn't happened yet. Back then renewable electricity generation schemes were subsidised very differently.