alt Hacker NewsIt’s just plain expensive thanks to the shitty price everything by most expensive source method. Of course people minimise use
Currently paying 0.33 usd a unit.
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Look into a battery + inverter + optional solar on a time of use tariff, you can be always off peak. Payback probably isn't very long.
Balancing auctions are pay-as-bid, the alternative is lights-off.
Capacity auctions are iirc pay as clear. Maybe day ahead as well.
One thing to consider as well is that without some external stimulus scheme all of the fossil/nuclear (even ignoring CFD schemes) would immediately go bust IIRC if the market was solely pay-as-bid because wind and solar are cheap but extremely spotty so the price would either be 0 or 1000, probably not the latter long enough to keep the gas plants we currently rely on in business => no more power on cold calm nights.
The spot price is set according to the most expensive source but that is not the same thing as the price the consumer pays.
So for example, for wind power the consumer effectively pays the CfD strike price, largely irrespective of the spot price.
Fwiw, I do agree we have a problem with power being too expensive, but it's more complex than just the consumer pays the most expensive source.