[sganesh]

Electric Retailers in Texas are stuck with this ask on ancillary charges. On an average 300x - 400x on a seven day spend. ERCOT chose to keep lights on in some areas, and take it down in other areas to prevent a grid collapse. All these utilities and generators who are now waiting for $2 billion payouts ( not because they actually incurred the cost, instead the algorithm designed to run at peak load kicked in ) instead would have been waiting for the grid to come back up and running up losses. Legislature/ ERCOT / PUC, needs to declare this as ‘act of nature / whatever’ , backdate a clause in the ancillary charges declaring a minimum load based on QSE (Qualified Scheduling Entities that ask for the buy the previous day or before) forecasts to be on the grid. Generators / Utilities now have learnt they can make money on such event, will trigger this a lot more in the future, every minor excuse they can find.