k/Simon - Here's what I found from last summer on the capacity market issue in Texas. From:
posting.php?mode=reply&f=6&t=69260"Texas' independent system operator, ERCOT, faced a challenging year in 2011. Winter cold snaps and unusually hot summer temperatures pushed the system to the edge and required bringing some mothballed plants out of retirement under special contracts covering variable costs. This situation triggered several years of debate at the Public Utility Commission of Texas on how best to guarantee long-term grid reliability and how to decide whether to supplement Texas’ energy-only market with a forward capacity market similar to those in the Eastern Interconnection.
Energy market revenues were seen as inadequate to stimulate new generation, while planning documents predicted record-low reserve margins. Texans for Reliable Power, an advocacy group representing some of the biggest generating companies in the state, even took out full-page ads in early 2014 depicting Texas in the dark, having fallen prey to blackouts.
In 2014, Texas regulators decided against a standard forward capacity market in favor of an energy-only market design with an operational reserve demand curve (ORDC is a day-ahead, real-time mechanism to signal looming scarcity in the energy market and provide extra revenue for generating capacity) and a higher wholesale energy price cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour.
This decision has likely saved Texas consumers billions, as well as significantly improving reliability, providing evidence of an energy transition driven by load reductions, significant increases in renewable generation, and cheap natural gas."
A lot more details in the link if interested.