Texas power prices briefly soar 1,600% as a spring heat wave is expected to drive record demand for energy
fortune.com
For about one hour late Friday, day-ahead prices on ERCOT's website jumped as high as $688 per MWh.

lmao lmao.

Reminder that Texas is a separate grid, which is deregulated and financialized, according to neoliberal ideals of efficiency.

  • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    Ercot has been saying this for almost a decade at this point though. I’m not arguing it isn’t hotter than it used to be, I’m saying it’s more likely that they’re lying about the reasoning for it. Like their lack of modernization of the infrastructure in general.

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      6 months ago

      ERCOT is a bazinga system operator set up by the characters from looney tunes. They’re the only system operator without a forward capacity market. Everyone else pays uneconomic reserve plants money just to stay connected and ready to respond to demand spikes, but the brain trust at ERCOT decided it would be cheaper for rate payers to not do that. Turns out it is until it isn’t, and the only way they have to balance supply with demand is to curtail demand with eye bleedingly high real time prices since there isn’t enough slack in the system.

    • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      I would be surprised if there isn’t any manipulation of the market.

      Some of my state’s SOE electricity generators got sued by the federal government for price manipulation on the national energy market (and then they gave up and changed the rules to try and stop it)