March 4, Michael Davis, economics professor at SMU Dallas Cox School of Business, for a piece analyzing what went wrong with the Griddy electric retailer during the cold snap and how “dynamic pricing” models could actually work. Published in the Houston Chronicle with the heading Griddy ‘wholesale’ pricing model iced over during the perfect storm; but there’s a way to fix it: https://bit.ly/3wDuI6N
Griddy, the Houston electricity retailer that sent those massive bills to customers after the big snowstorm, has had a bad few days. On Feb. 26, ERCOT shut them down for non payment of bills. On the following Monday the Texas Attorney General filed legal actions accusing them of things like price gouging and fraud.
Maybe Griddy is the most corrupt business since Al Capone’s bootlegging empire or maybe they’re just a victim of unprecedented bad weather. The lawyers can sort all that out. But whether Griddy somehow survives or fails, we should all hope something very similar to the Griddy business model lives on.