Deregulation has been a major shift for most regions. Back in the day, the utilities would always plan the system for load growth and build new capacity and tra

Deregulation has been a major shift for most regions. Back in the day, the utilities would always plan the system for load growth and build new capacity and transmission when needed. This led to overbuilding as the utilities had a greater incentive to be reliable than to reduce costs. Later there was a big push to deregulate to let the free market make those decisions, but capacity is extremely expensive to build and prices have been very low in the past decade. Why that is the case is being hotly debated. The production tax credits for things like wind were very successful in getting many GW of wind capacity built, but they've distorted the market by letting those entities offer into the market much lower than anything else. From a green energy perspective, that is great, but there isn't enough storage yet (not anywhere even close), so conventional generators are still vital. As far as the February event in ERCOT goes, this would've happened regardless I think if the utilities have zero desire to winter storm proof their equipment. All of that is incredibly expensive, so there would not have been a rush to spend money on something viewed as a hundred year event. With that being said. Hundred year events seem to happen every month now, so I'm fully supportive of new legislation and reform to the resource adequacy in the united states. I think it's hard for most people to understand that a huge amount of the natural gas fleet just couldn't get gas and that gas prices were in the thousands of dollars.