[panta82]

Exactly. Electricity should be something that just exists, as an ambiance around you. That you pay a predictable, modest monthly bill, and can than focus on other things. Who needs the drama of free markets there?

Also applies to net neutrality and health-care btw.

[Robotbeat]

The electricity price is not low if you use it without consideration of cost. Why bother with LED lights, heat-pumps, or proper insulation if you’re totally insensitive to the cost of electricity?

What happens in such situations is electricity ends up being rationed with rolling blackouts. Or, if you manage to produce enough anyway by massive government investment, per capita energy usage skyrockets. The former situation happens in developing countries and the latter in oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia which heavily subsidize electricity costs so it ends up being cheaper to just run the A/C at full blast constantly instead of properly insulating your household.

But most people don’t care about climate change, so maybe that’s the direction things would go.

[dredmorbius]

A predictable price sufficient to meet netcosts of provisioning is not the same as "price spikes 10,000% under historically precedented but outside planning contingencies weather event.

Texas saw similar temps in late January, 2011, highs around 20°F, lows near zero. That was ten years ago. There weren't widespread outages.

ERCOT's planning excluded that recent history.

[airhead969]

I think it depends on how much it costs and the environmental impact of energy generation and transmission. There's a continuum between austerity taxing a resource for insane frugality, moderate pricing, and giving it away that has to be deliberately comsidered.

[Robotbeat]

Moderate pricing is the right move. But a lot of folks are missing my main point here: The more people and businesses are on fixed rates, the more inelastic demand is and therefore the more extreme the pricing swings are for those who are on moderate real-time pricing plans. We need to make real-time pricing as broad as possible so the price extremes are much smaller. and make it more feasible for small players (including middle class individuals) to contribute directly to supply.

[airhead969]

Energy consumption for home use during a blizzard is very inelastic. Energy consumption for empty hotels and office buildings should be very elastic rather than sitting idle, lights on, and HVAC blasting. Nonessential businesses that consume large quantities of electricity should be cut first before residential areas.

[aaomidi]

By adding a carbon tax and a carbon offset refund.

Put the responsibility on the generators, not consumers.

[airhead969]

Yes. If generated from renewable sources, power should have a reasonable cost so people aren't server bitcoin mining or indoor weed farming for pennies when power is a limited resource. Prices should be smoothed out and predictable to the customer.

[kenmacd]

I don't know. It seems there can be quite an effect by shifting usage even slightly as power generation has to be real-time and handling the peaks costs up all more.

Free-market pricing seems wrong, as would per-minute pricing, but something like a 3-window (on-peak, off-peak, standard) time-of-day rate seems more acceptable.