>>> What I do not hear anyone talking about is that the biggest reason for the spike in power was ERCOT adding cost to the market prices in order to entice gene

>>> What I do not hear anyone talking about is that the biggest reason for the spike in power was ERCOT adding cost to the market prices in order to entice generators to get more power on the grid quickly. >> Wow, that's free market thinking gone mad. High prices can't conjure power stations out of thin air on short notice. > Except it can... With high enough prices businesses requiring power will shut down because it's more profitable to shut down and sell the electricity you no longer need than it is to stay open. > The key thing stopping this working well is how few people who have the ability to do arbitrage. If I run a Subway shop... Nope, sorry. For one, that's basically a fantasy. Few business, and certainly not little sandwich shops, are going to have electricity traders on staff to jump at once-in-a-lifetime arbitrage opportunities (we hope). If sandwiches shop owners are spending their mental energy being ready for electricity arbitrage opportunities of the sandwich business, we're living in a dystopia. Secondly, apparently the high prices were meant to "get more power on the grid quickly," not encourage shuffling the grid's insufficient amount of power around market-style. Your idea doesn't actually solve the problem.