Electricity bills cause huge problems for many households. Government officials are resorting to far-reaching explanations: “supply-demand mismatch”, “post-coronavirus growth”, “global energy crisis”. It does not only refer to the “liberalization” of the energy market, ie the privatization of electricity. How can they explain that its “invisible hand” that would supposedly drop prices, has the bills on an upward rally? How can I explain that energy from a social good has been converted into a stock market product?

PPC – now private – more than doubled its operating profit to 886 million euros for 2020, Hellenic Petroleum (Elpedison) improved over 600 million euros in 2021, while Mytilineos (Protergia) set the modest goal to double its profitability in 2022! Internationally, the profitability of energy monopoly groups is soaring: B has profits of 12.8 billion. dollars for 2021, the highest profits of the last 8 years, Shell reached 19 billion. dollars, while ExxonMobil counts profits of 23 billion. dollars. Our poverty their profits, so simple!

At a time when energy poverty is threatening the people, a handful of capitalists are hoarding, taking advantage of the privileged position provided to them by the outrageous institutional framework created jointly with EU mechanisms and governments, in the name of the environmental crisis and the “green transition”. How is this done? It is hard to believe, but the formation of the final price of electricity goes through at least three stock exchanges.

Clothes stock. The EU in the name of the “green transition” he built a Pollutant Emission Rights System, on the basis of which he distributed “pollutant rights” to countries and companies and set up a “pollutant stock exchange”. Our good EU has taken care to grant free rights to all power industries in order to preserve their “competitiveness” and has borne the cost of pollutants to power companies, since the consumer can not live without electricity. The stock market price of this non-existent product (of the “right to pollute”) jumped to 70 € / tn in November 2021, from just 18 € / tn in June 2018! And of course this comes back as a cost to electricity!

Gas exchange. As the goals for “de-lignification” escalate, the use of natural gas in electricity generation becomes important. In Greece, the percentage of electricity production from natural gas doubled between 2014 and 2019, reaching 35%. The price of gas is mainly determined on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Thus, if e.g. There is an increase in prices on the Dutch stock exchange, as we say due to the disruption of Russian gas coming from Ukraine, this increase will be transferred to Greece, even if our country is supplied with gas from Algeria. The highest price formed by the speculative bubble on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange “diffuses” everywhere and determines the prices of gas as a whole.

The decision of the Mitsotakis government to close the lignite plants by 2028 (when Germany itself has set the corresponding milestone 10 years later!), Accelerating them, has of course nothing to do with the full… ecological sensitivities of the N.D. , but with the advantage to the private entrepreneurs of natural gas units.

The Greek energy exchange. This is organized in such a way that the price of energy is not determined by the mixture of sources involved in its production (eg RES that have low costs), but by the price of the most expensive fuel, ie today natural gas, and in fact its most expensive price. . , which is its price on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. The clearing price of electricity on the energy exchange includes the highest prices per hour (limit values), regardless of the source. In other words: the price of electricity in the Greek stock market is shaped as if all electricity is generated by natural gas units, although natural gas participates in electricity generation by only 35%!

In numbers: in 2021 the share of natural gas units in the electricity market in Greece was 38% (37% was covered by RES including hydroelectric, 10% by lignite plants and 15% by imports). Despite this composition, when gas prices increased fivefold on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the same happened to prices on the Greek Energy Exchange: the megawatt hour climbed from € 50-60 in early 2021 to € 235-245 at the end of the year. (D. Kardomatea “Why high energy prices that will become a permanent problem”, liberal 22/10)

It should be noted that Greece is the only country in Europe where 100% of the energy that enters the system goes through the stock market – followed by Switzerland with 38% (!), While the cradle of neoliberalism, Great Britain, the corresponding percentage is only 13% and the rest is settled through long-term contracts. (Source: The Manifold, “Who is to blame for energy accuracy in Greece” 27/1/2022)

Bonus: the “balancing market”. This is a market in which suppliers submit real-time bids to fill the “energy gaps” that the system may have. It could be described as an “emergency market”. Here comes the icing on the cake of the speculation of Greek energy groups: while the wholesale price of electricity is around 200 € / mwh (in Greece which is the most expensive in Europe), the same megawatt hour in the “balancing market” jumps to 4,240 € / mwh! So a private derivative can legally enter the stock market with a high price in order not to enter the system the next day, calculating that this will create a lack of electricity in the system that will allow it to eventually sell the electricity in the “balancing market” by ten times price.

In all the above we must take into account the cartel practices of the energy companies in our country, in which PPC now participates, which operates solely on the basis of the profit of its shareholders. And of course the ease with which energy providers, without any barrier from the Greek state, can pass on the cost of the stock market to the targets, achieving super-profits for themselves and active poverty for all of us.

This all sounds absurd: and yet, this “absurdity” is precisely the function of “liberated” energy energy. Subsidizing tariffs advertised by the government is not a solution. Not only because it is crumbs, but mainly because it leaves intact the monstrous mechanism of price increases, effectively subsidizing speculation with state money.

The deeper foundation of the tragic developments in the price of electricity is precisely the fact that electricity instead of a social good has become a commodity, and in fact a stock market, according to the requirements of capital, EU directives and the kind sponsorship of N.D. governments. , PASOK, SYRIZA. Energy must leave the realm of commodity production altogether and become a public good again. This means a struggle for the nationalization of the energy sector (nationalization of PPC and all private units) without compensation, with workers’ and people’s control. Only a nationalized energy sector can make electricity cheap for everyone, utilizing existing technologies based on social needs and environmental balance.

This, of course, presupposes complete disorder in the directives and policy of the EU, the EU itself and a process of rupture and liberation from it. This political goal, which ultimately arises in every small or big issue, is not “for the future” but for the now.

* Electrical engineer, KSE ANTARSYA