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Comment by everybodyknows | Hacker News Reader

For comparison, during last year's freeze in Texas ERCOT prices hit ~€8000 per MWh.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-electricity-texas-prices-...

Is this a valid comparison? The issue in Texas was due to faulted generation which automatically triggered a cascade of tariffs - all of which were resolved and not billed to customers.

As soon as customers don't pay market rate, because for example a regulator steps in and bails someone out, there is zero incentive to conserve a scarce product.

It's like being given the company credit card and being told "spend whatever you like, bezos will pay the bill".

Again, not a valid comparison. The massive tariff increase was due to a hardware failure, not market pressures. It would like being given a credit card, with unforeseeable terms and conditions occurring outside the scope of your contract which are then resolved later in the month

It's not a exact comparison due to the winter storm, but ERCOT does see wholesale prices $1000+ MWh during the summer peaks and super peaks.

No, it’s not a valid comp at all.

1. Those prices came only from certain resellers, majority Texans were not affected by this.

2. People ended up having to pay that. ERGOT said those prices were valid and people got fucked.

This happened because ERGOT temporarily remove a cap on prices to retain stability during shutdown, allowing certain entities to take advantage of this. In my opinion, while this was not against the law, it was criminal in nature.

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