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WanderingEng · 1330 days ago · link · · parent · post: ERCOT triggers Texans with another warning on conserving energy
That's exactly it. Everywhere else they pay for enough capacity. It's basically break-even costs and only enough generation up to the expected demand (plus a margin). The peril of not having frequent enough or high enough real time prices discourages long term generation investments. And if you want to assume they're being shitty about it, not having enough generation means more frequent high prices for all of your other generation. Enron got in trouble for withholding generation, but what if you simply don't build enough generation? Same thing but you can't get in trouble.