Surge pricing has always left me feeling a bit cold. Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about her father surge pricing the food and fodder he held in the great storm. If you read around the topic, shopkeepers who did this were lynched.
In effect, its rationing. But unlike state rationing which makes everyone equally unhappy by doling out less than anyone wants (except of course the poor who often find under rationing their quality of life goes up: this happened in the UK in WW2) Surge pricing says "sucks to be poor"
I get it. I get that mechanistically its pure market. I get that some people like this. I just think its stupid and a-social.
I think we should work harder on how to manage the public utility function of power when there isn't enough to go around. '
Thats why sensible economies do in fact have "death panels" in health, because deciding to let the rich live and the poor die is worse. Of course once you call them that, its "game over" -And I have no doubt a power rationing function in the state would become weaponised to make the poor pay, more than the rich because rich people vote more. Surge pricing has the same outcome, but more simply. "it wasn't me, it was the _market_" is a great get-out clause.
You could (for instance) pay people not to use power. Thats a model being trialled in the UK and it was enormously popular. You get everyone with a TOU (time of use) smart meter and you tell them for every KWh they can demonstrate they stop using you will rebate them for that months bill. People RUSH to turn off devices, and sit in the dark with phones on battery to make some vig.