Habeck wants to fundamentally reform the electricity market

Berlin Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to fundamentally reform the electricity market. The aim is to decouple the electricity price from the gas price and thus achieve lower prices for consumers and industry, a ministry spokeswoman told the Handelsblatt. Electricity customers should benefit from the fact that renewable energies “produce so cheaply”.

The intended reform would thus invalidate a basic principle of today’s electricity market: Up to now, gas-fired power plants have usually set the price on the electricity market. They are the last to be started at peak times because they are the most expensive generation variant. However, the gas-fired power plants practically set the price for the entire electricity generation.

In other words: Electricity from coal-fired power plants or wind turbines is also billed on the electricity exchange at the price that expensive gas-fired power plants achieve for their electricity. High gas prices therefore automatically pull the electricity price level up.