A speculator, "HedgeFund Energy," starts buying up all FTRs on a congested line, creating artificial scarcity. Ethan uses Stoft’s insight: FTRs are not physical; they are just financial contracts. CISO issues more FTRs up to the physical limit of the line. The speculator’s hoard becomes worthless. The market learns: You can’t corner a market when the issuer (CISO) can create new instruments.
Ethan, as market monitor, uses Stoft’s "Three Pivotal Supplier Test." He finds that during peak hours, Apex is "pivotal"—meaning demand cannot be met without them. He recommends a and a "must-offer" requirement. Apex sues. Ethan wins in federal court by citing Stoft’s logic: In a perfect market, no single seller controls price. In electricity, the grid creates natural bottlenecks. Regulation is not interference; it is the correction of a broken physics-based market. power system economics steven stoft pdf
Ethan’s first crisis happens on a hot August afternoon. A transmission line from the cheap coal plants in the east to the city of "Metropolis" in the west trips offline. In the old world, he would have dispatched local gas turbines. But now, prices are set by auctions. A speculator, "HedgeFund Energy," starts buying up all
Fifteen years after restructuring, Ethan is retiring. The grid is 40% renewable. There have been no major blackouts. He holds his worn, annotated copy of Power System Economics . He realizes the book was not just about math. It was a story about engineering reality defeating economic purity . The speculator’s hoard becomes worthless