[pierrebai]

Combining real-time data, market with speculators and a product that demand immediate, real-time delivery is a recipe for disaster.

When demand exceed supply, given the real-time nature of the product speculators can come in a take you to the cleaner if they had any chance to beat you to foretelling this would happen.

As I understand it, ERCOT puts a $9000 per MWh to put a limit on speculation, but then what happens is you have to take people off the grid.

The desire to "maximize efficiency" by surfing the demand curve with real-time data is not worth worth the expense of smart meters and risks. Dumb demand curves have another advantage: the utility is forced to over-estimate demand, creating a built-in safety margin.