[Salgat]

Natural gas and coal make up over half of Texas power generation. We're better off ramping them down during low demand rather than keeping them running at max capacity for bitcoin mining of all things. What an environmental nightmare. Your example only works if most of the power comes from green energy sources.

[bhawks]

But ERCOT is not running at max fossil fuel generation capacity at all times. [1]

Keeping industrial scale operations running is usually cheaper, safer and more efficient than turning them completely off. This is not like switching off a lightbulb. ERCOT is using these agreements so that they can smoothly ramp down and dial up generation capacity.

1: https://youtu.be/ElbdWMvI1ZE

[Salgat]

No, they are using these agreements because they simply don't have enough capacity regardless and are desperate to find ways to cut power usage. You don't live here do you? Otherwise you'd see the constant emergency alerts from ERCOT begging residents to lower power usage or risk outages.