in the scenario with an renewable share electricity prices are considerably lower compared to the other scenarios and the number of hours with electricity prices equal to or below zero rises to an astonishing hours a reduced occurrence of electricity prices higher than variable costs in combination with reduced utilisation hours means lower inframarginal rents for recovering capital costs consequently it is highly questionable whether conventional power plants can be profitably operated with high shares of renewables in energyonly markets with price formation being based on marginal costs