[QEPMALKIyTgGH]

As far as I can see energy markets work well in Europe. It started in Norway as far as I know (not exactly the bastion of free markets) then spread across Scandinavia and down to Continental Europe.

How it works in Norway is that all power producers sell their power on an exchange where before 12 each day they specify the volume they will produce depending on the price for each hour the next day. All bids are compared to see who will produce how much. Price your power too high you don't get to sell any power, price too low you loose profits.

Among the buyers on this market are power resellers that sell to consumers. As a consumer I can buy from any reseller regardless of my grid provider. This makes resellers highly competetive and a consumer only pay a few cents above the exchange price per KWh (depending on contract and the type add ons the manage to sell you)

The grid owner charge a fix connection fee together with a per KWh fee. My guess is that both fees are regulated.

I guess the markets in other parts of Europe work quite similar. It is hard to know what the prices would be if the market was not in place but energy production has in the last few years gone from being very lucrative to be much lower margins.

This is not an argument against net neutrality though. Only wanted to point out that energy markets can and do work.

[igk]

One important thing to note that this is not in any definition a "free" market. IIRC producers cannot directly sell to consumers, grid providers cannot easily set up new power plants, the pricing is done in a VERY regulated way...basically the whole system is set up to be competitive not free. This distinction is something which I feel is often lost.

[matt4077]

> The grid owner charge a fix connection fee together with a per KWh fee. My guess is that both fees are regulated.

Your guess is correct, and it's the basic equivalent of net neutrality. In essence, European energy markets moved to net neutrality when they were liberated. Before, the local utility "owned" the customer, and in turn got to decide where to buy (and/or produce themselves) the energy they sold to the customer. Their monopoly power was restrained by being publicly owned, or by being required to keep prices close to those charged by publicly-owned utilities.

Energy is slightly different in that it is almost a true commodity, so people rarely cared ("almost", because some consumers have since chosen to pay more for renewables)

[robocat]

Energy markets are carefully modelled and designed - there is a whole history and industry of consultants[1] and companies[2] behind it. Also the systems evolve independently in different countries with cross-pollination.

The internet doesn't have the same national boundaries, nor such a limited scope.

[1] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/teaching-courses/course-...

[2] http://www.nera.com/practice-areas/energy.html

[_ea1k]

The prices are much higher in typical European markets than in the US, though, aren't they?