Oh yeah, our oil companies and our renewable energy companies have been recording record profits from the moment the Russia-Ukraine war began!

As far as I can tell since writing this, the reason is that everyone must make at least some profit. At the same time, all electricity is pooled together and then sent out as a single wholesale energy source: there is no system in place where you can just be powered by one type. So they are all forced to make huge profits.

However, I also learnt that, despite how massive profits going to renewables could be a positive (incentivising even more renewables) they actually have profit caps put on them and the rest of the profit gets sent to the government, who then waste it on getting themselves new homes in London or whatever lol.

This also means the government has a massive disincentive to create cheaper energy. Sigh.