I'm starting to have flashbacks to Griddy and the $9,000/MWh wholesale pricing I had to dance around in Feb 2021. The novelty of accounting for small appliance usage in dollars per hour wore off pretty quickly for me.

I was able to get my sustained electricity consumption under ~800w (including central furnace blower) after some extreme compromises. Only had to pay about a thousand dollars for that incident. I know of people on Griddy who had 5 figure bills that month.

In retrospect, I think variable rates are the ultimate solution to these problems. I am not usually very price sensitive, but $9/KWh is a monster rate if you aren't paying attention. I was forced to adjust my behavior to accommodate the available supply.

For better or worse, we still can't store electricity at scale in most markets, so forcing the consumer behavior may be the next best option.