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This article's misleading. It's talking about spot price contracts. This is the price electric providers themselves pay and certain large businesses which opt i

This article's misleading. It's talking about spot price contracts. This is the price electric providers themselves pay and certain large businesses which opt into the potentially extreme volatility to achieve lower overall pricing. If there are any 'normal' consumers on spot-contracts, it's exceptionally rare. Just about everybody's on fixed price contracts, which have been trending downward in cost. The other extreme side of this coin that you will sometimes see is spot-prices going negative. Needless to say, customers don't receive a check in the mail as their bill during those times, anymore than they suddenly get a 5 figure bill in these sort of times.

theolivenbaum 3y ago
Isn't that the whole issue in Texas, that end customers can decide to pay the spot prices? Something similar happened last time they had issues: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-b...
- vel0city 3y ago
  Residential customers can't really sign up for spot pricing plans anymore, and even back then those plans were extremely rare.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Yeah, the article seems to clarify this: --- 'Many of the people who have reported extremely high charges are customers of a small company that provides electricity at wholesale prices.. The model can be risky. Last week, foreseeing a huge jump in wholesale prices, the company encouraged all of its 29,000 customers to switch to another provider when the storm arrived. But many were unable to do so.' --- So a fraction of 29,000 people in a state of 30 million. Things like this are such a shame because being able to buy electric wholesale would be such a luxury. You could pay rock bottom prices 99% of the time, but of course it'd come with the responsibility that you need to be able to handle those 1% events without just relying entirely on your electric. And the natural/reactionary outcome of stuff like this is the government will simply completely prohibit people of insufficient means from being able to sign up for spot priced electric contracts, and the gap just gets even wider.
fulafel 3y ago
What has kept the non-business users off spot priced contracts? It would seem like a good setup if you have some kind of backup power and own eg solar generation. And in a situation like this you could benefit from selling generated power. In some other parts of the world private end-users semi commonly have spot contracts.
nunez 3y ago
Yes, but I believe this affects the prices that resellers price new contracts at, which affects customers signing up for electricity during the surge. This is, also, definitely how resellers go out of business. Happens every year.

theolivenbaum 3y ago

Isn't that the whole issue in Texas, that end customers can decide to pay the spot prices? Something similar happened last time they had issues: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-b...

vel0city 3y ago
Residential customers can't really sign up for spot pricing plans anymore, and even back then those plans were extremely rare.
somenameforme 3y ago
Yeah, the article seems to clarify this: --- 'Many of the people who have reported extremely high charges are customers of a small company that provides electricity at wholesale prices.. The model can be risky. Last week, foreseeing a huge jump in wholesale prices, the company encouraged all of its 29,000 customers to switch to another provider when the storm arrived. But many were unable to do so.' --- So a fraction of 29,000 people in a state of 30 million. Things like this are such a shame because being able to buy electric wholesale would be such a luxury. You could pay rock bottom prices 99% of the time, but of course it'd come with the responsibility that you need to be able to handle those 1% events without just relying entirely on your electric. And the natural/reactionary outcome of stuff like this is the government will simply completely prohibit people of insufficient means from being able to sign up for spot priced electric contracts, and the gap just gets even wider.

fulafel 3y ago

What has kept the non-business users off spot priced contracts? It would seem like a good setup if you have some kind of backup power and own eg solar generation. And in a situation like this you could benefit from selling generated power. In some other parts of the world private end-users semi commonly have spot contracts.

nunez 3y ago

Yes, but I believe this affects the prices that resellers price new contracts at, which affects customers signing up for electricity during the surge. This is, also, definitely how resellers go out of business. Happens every year.