Re:The Texas electric grid failure was a warm-up
by mindslight on Thursday January 20, 2022 @11:35AM
(#30011142)
> wouldn't be viable if they had to compete to sell power on the open market
Capacity markets are "the open market". They're a market for a different product - the option to request power during a later period. And when we're discussing power shortages with catastrophic results, that lack of capacity is a lot more important than specific resulting spot price.
Environmentally it's better to keep an extra coal plant operational than to have everyone install their own backup generators (and ad-hoc fuel storage!) to mitigate the problems with "best effort" grid supply.
Capacity markets are "the open market". They're a market for a different product - the option to request power during a later period. And when we're discussing power shortages with catastrophic results, that lack of capacity is a lot more important than specific resulting spot price.
Environmentally it's better to keep an extra coal plant operational than to have everyone install their own backup generators (and ad-hoc fuel storage!) to mitigate the problems with "best effort" grid supply.