“Someone selling on the spot market did reap a windfall but it wasn’t the company billing the consumer.”
It was the generators - whether wind, coal, nuke, or anyone in between. If they could have put juice on the grid they would have made bank. Maybe mitigated for NG units when NG prices spiked, but even the $9K/MWhr is huge.
They had every motivation to be and get online.
A lot of people got screwed in this, but the market signals to the generation assets was sell sell sell.
No argument there, but as I understand it the consumers who got hit were those who purchased their power via firms like Griddy who just passed through their wholesale costs of power.
When the wholesale spot market prices spiked Griddy had no option but to pass them on to the consumer. These are the bills that the federal government will end up paying.
The companies actually generating power may have made bank selling any excess but they couldn't have soaked their main customers since they were under contract.