Last week as Texas’ ERCOT grid reached its price cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour and the price map on ERCOT’s home page became a solid and deep red, many energy market wonks highlighted that this is a feature, not a failure, of the market.
Texas’ summer heat — one of the few things the industry can rely on — brings scarcity prices which encourage the construction of new projects to restore some cushion to low reserve margins and a return to low power prices. ERCOT’s defenders cite it as a more open and efficient, if unnerving, system.
