alt Hacker News> Partly because they still use coal, which is heavily taxed under the emissions trading scheme
... and solar is heavily subsidized, which could outweigh this effect. So this doesn't explain the high energy prices.
> partly because of the way electricity auctions work in most of Europe, namely every participant sells at the price offered by the highest bidder.
This doesn't explain why Germany has so high electricity prices.
> This doesn't explain why Germany has so high electricity prices.
It's the main thing which does.
Say you have two energy sources, Alice Electric can deliver at €0.03/kWh but only up to 10% of your demand, while Bob Energy can deliver 200% of your demand but all units will cost €0.5/kWh.
The net result of the electricity auction, as described, is that the consumers pay Alice and Bob €0.5/kWh each, which gives Alice a €0.47/kWh profit margin and therefore lot of money to expand operations if she wants to, but until she can actually supply 100% of demand, it's priced by what Bob charges.