An international growth. The cases of England and Germany
The increase is international. These days the European power exchange Epex wholesale electricity supplies are very expensive, the record is in England where spot electricity prices are around 400 pounds per thousand kilowatt hours, with peaks of up to 2 euros per kilowatt hour for deliveries in the evening at 20 ( 1,675 pounds per thousand kilowatt hours). Germany, on the other hand, postpones the monstrous blow of energy price increases until after the elections: gasoline could jump to 2.2-2.5 euros per liter (according to analyzes by the Handelsblatt newspaper), electricity will arrive at prices never seen before and are kept stop so as not to scare the voter. Moreover, Germany is going full coal while wind, without enough wind, has fallen in position. According to the Federal Statistical Office , in the first six months of 2021 there is a boom in fossils and conventional sources have grown by + 20.9% and are 56% while coal has returned to being the first energy source.
Nuclear, fields and renewables do not solve
Nuclear power, which does not emit CO2, and other non-fossil sources, such as renewables, help but are not enough to mitigate the phenomenon of price increases. Why is it that all atomic France, the industrialized country with the lowest CO2 emission rate in the world, has high prices? And high prices in hydroelectric Austria? Simple. Renewables and nuclear producers try to get the best possible price when they sell their consignments of electricity on the power exchange and place their offers at a value immediately below that of their fossil competitors, thus achieving very interesting margins for their shareholders. A similar phenomenon also for those who have deposits, such as Italy which is very rich in methane but does not want to exploit national resources: the methane extracted in Italy is sold at international prices, or immediately lower, as the extractive companies try to maximize the value of their assets, as the State will maximize it when collecting royalties on those fields, which are in percentage with the market price. For years, ecologists have been calling for that drilling is suspended and the research of fields, and their exploitation, in order to reduce the supply of oil and gas and therefore raise their prices: an objective fully achieved.
The 12 billion extra cost of renewables
Costs are also increased by the values of CO2 emissions, which on the final price represent about a fifth of the increase. Summer fires in many young reforestation areas have destroyed forests that had been planted to neutralize CO2 emissions, and this is one factor that has added spikes to CO2 prices. In the meantime, beware. Among the raw materials, those for making solar panels and wind turbines are also increasing: renewable investments are no longer so convenient. According to analysts from Rystad , with these costs of the supply chain it is difficult to guarantee climate objectives. However, in this period the brake on renewables is also given by the slowness of international logistics for components and then for the delivery of the finished product. The cost of photovoltaic modules has grown, but with a modest effect on the finished cost of solar power plants, while more important extra costs are dictated by the overall market conditions.
In Italy, the incentive for renewables also weighs on the bill, which is added above the cost of energy itself. Today the incentive, equal to 3-3.5 cents per kilowatt hour, worsens the costs per kilowatt hour, it does not reduce them. It is about a dozen billion a year that electric consumers pay to those who produce electricity with wind, sun, water and so on. The most important item is the energy account for photovoltaics. The incentives for the costs of renewables have been added to the cost of the kilowatt hour in order to make those who consume that electricity pay them, to induce better efficiency in consumers and to make the tariff transparent and responsive to its cost. As a solution, there are those who propose to hide the incentives for renewables in general taxation, shifting the extra cost generated by electricity consumers alone to all citizens and hiding the cost factors of green energy.