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The price is listed as mega watt per hour but the average house uses just 3% of a megawatt per day. It looks like on the graphs it spiked for just a couple hour

The price is listed as mega watt per hour but the average house uses just 3% of a megawatt per day. It looks like on the graphs it spiked for just a couple hours and was normal price the rest of the day. Presumably this was at a time people liked to run their AC full blast, but nonetheless feels like worst case scenario it meant your electricity bill went up $15 that day if you didnt save energy? Which would be very annoying - though realistically dont know if it deserves the doomsday comments. I'm curious if they texted people ahead of time to remind them about this so they could shut off stuff and save money. If they did send out these reminders (in attempt to lower collective demand and allow people to save money) then it seems reasonable.

vel0city 3y ago
People aren't on plans that expose them to spot pricing. No consumers directly paid more because of this spike.
- bombcar 3y ago
  In Texas there was the option to be on a plan that exposes you to spot pricing. The last time there was that cold snap there was some kerfuffle about it, and I think they banned it.
Eisenstein 3y ago
> The price is listed as mega watt per hour but the average house uses just 3% of a megawatt per day. It is listed in megawatt/hr because that is how you meter electricity. Megawatt/day is not a standard I have heard of. > Which would be very annoying - though realistically dont know if it deserves the doomsday comments. I don't see any 'doomsday comments' in the article. What is alarming though is that these prices are happening, and all it takes is a few generation facilities to go offline for something like that to become long-term. Essentially, if the prices are hitting the cap for any amount of time, then the system is one misfortune away from catastrophe. Engineers don't design bridges to hold the max they think it will need, they engineer it to hold multiple times that. Something essential operating at max is operating extremely poorly.
- fasthands9 3y ago
  I was merely just trying to do a calculation to put it in context. A lot of people in the comments are talking about how unfair it has gotten for consumers for this to happen. I am just trying to state that it is not as much of a burden if its put in terms of the actual potential monetary harm. When most people see "prices soar 6000 percent" most people assume that this doesnt just mean a $15 total icnrease. There is an obvious trade-off in cost here. If a state wanted to it could force its citizens to pay twice as much for its power and build twice as much power plants. Or force people to build solar panels on all new construction etc. People may ultimately say this is more of a burden for the typical user even if it would avoid the 2 times a year where everything goes wrong.
bagels 3y ago
I think your units are mixed up. I think you mean megawatt-hour and dollars per megawatt-hour?

vel0city 3y ago

People aren't on plans that expose them to spot pricing. No consumers directly paid more because of this spike.

bombcar 3y ago
In Texas there was the option to be on a plan that exposes you to spot pricing. The last time there was that cold snap there was some kerfuffle about it, and I think they banned it.

Eisenstein 3y ago

> The price is listed as mega watt per hour but the average house uses just 3% of a megawatt per day. It is listed in megawatt/hr because that is how you meter electricity. Megawatt/day is not a standard I have heard of. > Which would be very annoying - though realistically dont know if it deserves the doomsday comments. I don't see any 'doomsday comments' in the article. What is alarming though is that these prices are happening, and all it takes is a few generation facilities to go offline for something like that to become long-term. Essentially, if the prices are hitting the cap for any amount of time, then the system is one misfortune away from catastrophe. Engineers don't design bridges to hold the max they think it will need, they engineer it to hold multiple times that. Something essential operating at max is operating extremely poorly.

fasthands9 3y ago
I was merely just trying to do a calculation to put it in context. A lot of people in the comments are talking about how unfair it has gotten for consumers for this to happen. I am just trying to state that it is not as much of a burden if its put in terms of the actual potential monetary harm. When most people see "prices soar 6000 percent" most people assume that this doesnt just mean a $15 total icnrease. There is an obvious trade-off in cost here. If a state wanted to it could force its citizens to pay twice as much for its power and build twice as much power plants. Or force people to build solar panels on all new construction etc. People may ultimately say this is more of a burden for the typical user even if it would avoid the 2 times a year where everything goes wrong.

bagels 3y ago

I think your units are mixed up. I think you mean megawatt-hour and dollars per megawatt-hour?