EU electricity market is very similar to it, but interconnected and probably more free market style. A lot of people pay the spot price depending on county and their provider of course.

I didn’t really find anything problematic from an economic standpoint with the Texas power disaster. On the surface, the main problem there was just that a bunch of people were on spot energy plans, in order to save tremendous amount of money as long as the spot price stayed low. This is simply gambling. Those people after some period of savings suddenly cried foul when their gamble went south as prices spiked. The only issue I see here is if they weren’t adequately informed of that possibility. Obviously, the people who got the $2000 electricity bills are going to be the decide they weren’t informed adequately, and I’m sure it was spelled out in a document the size of an iTunes license agreement that literally no customer ever read. But anyway those people had themselves to blame as that plan was not mandatory or default.