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The market also provides incentives to use power when it is cheapest to generate.
該市場還激勵人們在發電成本最低的時候使用電力。
Currently, prices are lowest at lunchtime and in the night.
目前，午餐時間和夜間的電力價格最低。
The transition to renewable energy means that prices will become more volatile.
向可再生能源的過渡意味著價格將變得更加不穩定。
But that volatility is what drives innovation and investment in storage, smart meters and hydrogen.
但正是這種波動性推動了電力儲存、智能電表和氫能發電領域的創新和投資。
A high-capacity battery, and the storage it provides, will be most useful when prices oscillate between extremes.
當價格在兩極之間波動時，大容量電池及其提供的電力儲存技術將最為有用。
For a while, it looked as though the problem with Europe’s market was that prices were too low.
有一段時間，歐洲市場的問題似乎是電力價格太低。
With more and more renewable energy entering the market, the price of electricity sometimes fell to zero and even turned negative.
隨著越來越多的可再生能源進入市場，電價有時會降至零點，甚至轉為負值。
The question was how marginal gas power plants—that might be needed to cover a windless, cloudy winter day—could make enough money during the rest of the year to survive.
問題是，在今年剩下的時間里，（無風多云的冬日可能會需要的）邊際燃氣發電廠如何才能賺到足夠的錢來存活下去。
Some countries opted to add a capacity market; that is, they auctioned off payments to generators just for being there.
一些國家選擇增加容量市場；也就是說，他們拍賣掉了僅僅為了讓發電商留下來而對其支付的費用。
Others stuck with an “energy-only market”.
其他國家則堅持“單一能量市場”。
The question now is very different.
現如今，這個問題與之前有很大不同。
Europe’s markets face sky-high prices for electricity, as the result of a war.
由于一場戰爭，歐洲市場面臨著天價電價。
It is a situation for which they were not designed.
這是一種他們設計時沒有考慮到的情況。
Thus policymakers face three challenges.
因此，政策制定者面臨著三個挑戰。
The first is to preserve the marginal-price signal, for both generators and consumers, in the face of political pressure to weaken it.
第一個挑戰是，面對削弱邊際電價的政治壓力時，為發電商和消費者保留邊際電價信號。
Lowering prices, for example by subsidising gas used in electricity generation, as Spain and Portugal have done, would elsewhere require some other form of rationing to allocate scarce energy.
像西班牙和葡萄牙所做的那樣，通過補貼用于發電的天然氣來降低價格，這將需要其他形式的配給來分配稀缺的能源。
(Spain and Portugal can get away without rationing because Spain is an important gas hub, so can easily import more.)
(西班牙和葡萄牙可以在沒有配給的情況下幸免于難，因為西班牙是一個重要的天然氣樞紐，因此很容易進口更多天然氣。）
The second is how and if to redistribute profits.
第二個挑戰是如何以及是否要重新分配利潤。
The German government has recently decided to grab those it considers excessive, while leaving the price signal alone.
德國政府最近決定抓住那些它認為的超額利潤，而不去理會價格信號。
(The European Commission may advise countries to do something similar.)
(歐盟委員會可能會建議各國效仿。）
It will do this through what is essentially a windfall tax that limits the share of the spot-market price that suppliers can keep.
它將通過本質上是一種暴利稅的措施來實現這一點，該措施會限制供應商可以保留的現貨市場價格份額。
The problem is that generators have hedged their exposure to differing degrees, meaning the true recipients of the windfall profits may prove hard to find, and may in fact sit outside the energy market.
問題是，發電商對自己的風險敞口進行了不同程度的對沖，這意味著可能很難找到暴利的真正接受者，而且這些接受者實際上可能都不在能源市場內。
The third is to ensure that Europe’s energy market is ready for the next crisis, and to do so without sacrificing its advantages.
第三個挑戰是，確保歐洲能源市場為下一場危機做好準備，并且在這樣做的同時不犧牲自己的優勢。
At present, the spot market efficiently allocates capacity and provides signals on energy scarcity, offering an incentive for investment in renewables.
目前，現貨市場有效地分配了產能，并提供了能源稀缺的信號，從而激勵了對可再生能源的投資。
But to guard against sustained shortfalls in capacity, and thus another price crunch, Europe’s energy markets must adapt.
但為了防止產能持續短缺，從而引發另一場價格危機，歐洲能源市場必須做出調整。
Long-term hedging markets are not very liquid, because consumers used to see little need for price security.
長期對沖市場的流動性不是很強，因為消費者過去認為價格保障沒有什么必要。
In the future, they will probably see more.
在未來，他們可能會發現價格保障的必要性。
Regulators could help.
監管機構可以提供幫助。
A proposal by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology advises them to buy “affordability options” from generators, a form of insurance that would return profits from excessive prices to consumers, in effect creating an automatic windfall tax.
麻省理工學院研究人員的一項提案建議他們從發電商那里購買“可負擔性期權”，這是一種將過高價格的利潤返還給消費者的保險形式，這實際上創造了一種自動的暴利稅。
How politicians would love to have something like that in place now.
政客們多么希望現在就能有這樣的東西啊。
