German year-ahead electricity futures plunged as much as 54% from Monday’s peak above 1,000 euros a megawatt-hour as the European Union considers various measures to intervene in the market to damp runaway energy costs crippling economies across the bloc.

Germany, which has the European Union’s biggest economy, and other countries intend restarting mothballed coal-fired power plants and extending the life of their nuclear power plants to reduce their reliance on Russian gas and coal following its invasion of Ukraine.

The EU’s energy agency, Acer, has warned against tearing up the market structure. In a report in April, it said that the EU’s wholesale electricity markets work well under normal conditions, ensuring secure electricity supply.

While some countries like Germany, where nearly half the homes rely on gas for heating, are more exposed than others, the European Union is seeking to band together.

UK households will pay almost triple the price to heat their homes this winter compared with a year ago, a jarring increase for millions of people already struggling to afford everyday essentials.

Households in the Nordic country have already been told to prepare for rolling power cuts in the winter, as there will be no supplies from Russia to help meet peak demand.

Subsidies, which will be incorporated into power bills, are expected to absorb up to 94% of the rise in monthly power bills for households and 89% of the rise for small and medium-sized firms.

Overall, the planned total capacity of the MBR solar park is 5 GW, to be reached by 2030.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in March, things went from tightness of supply to impending disaster. Russia, through a complex network of pipelines, is the principal supplier of natural gas to Europe and all petroleum products to Germany. Now it has curtailed normal flows.

Berlin is already under serious pressure after Russia cut flows through Nord Stream 1, the key connector with Europe, which is currently running at just 20 per cent capacity.

The spot price of Brent crude oil averaged $71 per barrel (b) in 2021, and we forecast the Brent price will average $104/b in 2022 and $94/b in 2023.

Benchmark German power for next year rose as much as 4.5% to a record 446 euros a megawatt-hour on the European Energy Exchange.

Under the government’s latest “reasonable worst-case scenario,” Britain could face an electricity capacity shortfall totaling about a sixth of peak demand, even after emergency coal plants have been fired up, according to people familiar with the government’s planning.

For the first five months of 2022, solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources provided 25.7% of U.S. electricity – more than either coal or nuclear power and up from 22.9% a year earlier.

The transition to a renewable plus storage grid would require replacement of baseload coal generation and perhaps nuclear generation as well.