Prices over $1000/MWhr (megawatt hour) are becoming all-too frequent as the cold winter blast coincides with low lake levels and inflows, and low wind generation. Price signals are important to reducing demand and that isn't happening at present except in the industrial sector. The mismatch is because we have far too little headroom in our renewables capacity. We have had extreme price stress in the past, but as the chart below shows, things settled back after. But that isn't happening now.

Source: Stuff August 06, 2024 03:55 UTC