The spot price of wholesale electricity on the Texas power grid spiked more than 10,000% on Monday amid a deep freeze across the state and rolling outages among power producers, according to data on the grid operator’s website, as reported by Reuters.
Real-time wholesale market prices on the power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) have climbed as high as $11,000 per megawatt, according to ERCOT. A typical price on the grid, which supplies most of the electricity for Texas, is less than $100 per megawatt.
The surge reflects the real-time price of electricity and the cost of congestion and losses at different points across the grid. Early on Monday, ERCOT said extreme weather conditions forced many power generating units off the grid, upending the supply of electricity.
ERCOT did not respond to an email message about the spike in wholesale electricity prices.
Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Andrea Ricci
