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> This logic is just not describing what happens in practice It is though just not in a way that's obvious. It's not free reign capitalism, there's government

> This logic is just not describing what happens in practice It is though just not in a way that's obvious. It's not free reign capitalism, there's government oversight to prevent the obvious price gouging. The issue is when that 20 year mark hits and no one was ready but the automated systems were allowed to charge uncapped, 180x normal rate[0]. The power company cut corners where it could, on winterization because "what are the chances of that happening"? Were low, but not zero. They had happened before in Texas's history but they just chose not to because it's relatively expensive to protect against 50 yr time horizons. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

roenxi 3y ago
> The issue is when that 20 year mark hits and no one was ready but the automated systems were allowed to charge uncapped, 180x normal rate[0]. That is actually relatively normal behaviour for an electricity market. In my area the price usually jumps 2 orders of magnitude at the height of summer. It isn't a concern (the grid is cooked, but not because of peak prices). The market is signalling that it is worth having capacity available just for the peak - the cost of that type of redundancy is high, so the prices need to be high to make it happen. Also, if the price is capped then the grid blacks out at that point. Uncapped is the way to go.