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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

The regulator set prices at $9000 with the idea that the high price would reduce the shortage.

And it did. Plenty of Texans were reducing their power usage to the absolute bare minimum once they got word of how expensive power had just become.

Why would retail customers (with fixed rates) worry about it?

Commercial customers like factories and empty offices cutting usage can still make a serious impact.

I expect they would have mostly been shut down at $1200.

Really it looks like retail electric providers in Texas are structurally disadvantaged vs generators, carrying an unlimited obligation of service vs getting the spot price set to the regulatory maximum.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26282500

25000 people.

I recall hearing that it was 29K on Griddy (myself included) before the storm. I've also heard a little over 10K were left to be transferred when it was shut down. I'm not sure exactly how many were exposed to the 4-days of artificially pegged prices.

I've also discovered over the past week that there's at least one more wholesale-rate provider, https://www.octopusenergy.com (specifically, it's OctoFlex plan).

Not all retail customers have fixed rates.

Yeah, that's why I added the qualifier. It seems likely that most of the spot load was going to home heating (with less flexible large loads having contracts).

Ah, I misunderstood your comment. You meant "those retail customers who have fixed rates", but I read it as "retail customers, who have fixed rates".

Of course, now people are going to keep an eye on daily utility prices, to avoid life braking bills. The superiority of a free market with poor regulations!

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