The Power Market

Every morning, 400 businesses from 20 countries bid for electricity delivery—cheapest generator wins, no meetings required. This is decentralized coordination at continental scale: Nord Pool traded 1,150 TWh in 2024 through pure price signals, demonstrating how markets can allocate resources without central planning. The merit order mechanism—where generators with the lowest marginal cost dispatch first—mirrors source-sink dynamics in biological systems: power flows from surplus regions (sources) to deficit regions (sinks), replicating the efficient transport networks that slime molds construct without centralized intelligence. When this elegant system fails, as during the 2022 energy crisis when gas prices spiked 20-fold overnight, the phase transition is brutal: Nordic prices that normally average €36/MWh can spike 1,800% in a single auction. The market's 2025 transition to 15-minute trading intervals reflects increasing renewable volatility—homeostatic systems under stress increase their feedback frequency to maintain stability, and electricity grids must do the same.