Maximillian Nölke joins The Sophron® Network to explain how an electricity market actually trades, from the inside of an Irish power desk. We start with the overnight period that cleared at 200 to 240 euro when the desk had expected 120 to 130, and work outwards: why gas still sets the price in a system built around wind, why a battery is the only asset that can move electricity through time, and why nothing a power trader does can be carried into tomorrow. Maximillian Nölke is a Senior Energy Trader at GridBeyond in Dublin, where he trades Irish power on an assetless basis alongside PPAs on wind farms and battery storage. He joined in January 2026 from EP UK Investments, where he spent two years optimising a portfolio of twelve thermal generation plants across the all island market and ran the associated gas and carbon books. Before that he traded short term power at PrepayPower Energy Trading, covering the Irish single electricity market and GB intraday. Since 2019 he has also run his own research, building factor based strategies across equities, commodities, crypto and I-SEM power, including a price forecasting model on more than fifty variables. We cover the shape of the trading day and its four hard auction deadlines, what really sets the price, and the part that surprises people from financial markets most: every half hour settles into imbalance, so the honest analogy is a one day option rather than a position you can sit on. We also discuss DS3 and why a rarely called battery is still worth paying for, Europe's negative prices and the storage gap behind them, what optimising twelve thermal plants involves once gas, carbon and start costs meet the price you are willing to sell at, and which of his fifty model variables carried real weight. Follow Maximillian NölkeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximillian-nolkeGridBeyond: https://gridbeyond.com Core Timestamps00:00 - Cold open: the overnight that paid over 200,00000:30 - Welcome and introductions03:46 - A day on an Irish power desk: four auctions, hard deadlines06:52 - Why every half hour settles and nothing carries over09:45 - What sets the price: gas, wind, temperature, interconnectors13:05 - Data centres, EVs and air conditioning reshaping demand14:45 - Batteries: the only technology that moves electricity through time16:42 - DS3, ancillary services and keeping the system standing18:08 - How he ended up in energy, and who gets blamed for prices22:32 - Nuclear as baseload, and the ten year lead time25:45 - From twelve thermal plants to an assetless book28:13 - Gas, carbon and power: optimising a thermal fleet33:04 - The true price of an energy day, and the overnight that paid34:34 - Recency bias and how much past data is worth37:49 - Constraints, curtailment and negative prices41:22 - Why battery investors need revenue certainty43:51 - The fifty variable model: what mattered, what was noise45:49 - Weather forecasting as a genuine edge47:39 - Breaking into energy trading: pick one narrow problem Connect With UsInstagram: https://instagram.com/amsterdaminvestLinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/amsterdam-investment-clubX: https://x.com/amsterdaminvest Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of markets, research, and technology.
