I don’t know anything about particular political distortions in the US, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they exist, at least on a small scale. What I can tell

I don’t know anything about particular political distortions in the US, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they exist, at least on a small scale. What I can tell you is that electric energy is traded on complicated spot markets that are designed to ensure that production and consumption are balanced at every point in time. Overproduction is as bad as underproduction, as the power grid can’t store excess energy. Fuses are tripped to prevent short-circuits, causing blackouts. This makes time-based arbitrage difficult. Since power demand isn’t entirely predictable, flexibility is rewarded in these markets. For example, if there’s a downward spike in demand that causes an imbalance, you can earn extra money by either having a power plant that can ramp down very quickly, or by being a consumer that can ramp up very quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if mining rigs participated in these spot markets. In theory, they should be able to adjust their power consumption within seconds. BTW, it’s been theorized that overnight charging of electric cars could do the same thing and dynamically adjust the charging speed based on spot prices.