Haha no, but I almost signed up for that service last year. It’s an interesting concept but it’s like a mixture of buying electricity and playing the stock market at the same time investing in a volatile commodity. People don’t realize that with sometimes super low prices, if demand is high(like it was this week) the price will skyrocket and you will be on the hook for it. You pay the spot price for whatever power costs and your bill is created in real time.
I wonder if they're subject to the laws around gouging people in a crisis. Regardless of demand, it's not like the local grocery store can start charging $100 for a bottle of water.
I guess I need to buy instant coffee and/or caffeine pills for the emergency "go bag." Look at y'all, giving me good ideas and stuff.
There might be some kind of legal protection, but the company doesn't set the price. The customer pays what other power companies pay(I think). The customer agrees to pay the variable rate for power.
Speaking of preparedness, I have an anecdote that shows just how little people think ahead: I was visiting open houses with a friend who was thinking of buying a house in LA. We were at one place with a somewhat precarious looking brick chimney, and my friend asked the realtor "how did this house fare in the '94 quake?" She looked back and said "you're the first person to ask that." Open house in the middle of earthquake country was packed with prospective buyers, and the central feature of the house was a fucking Jenga tower, and no one thought to ask "hey, how is this house prepared for an earthquake?" Forget spending money to prepare, people didn't even consider it.
I saw a can of Stacker2 branded energy drink at the Dollar Tree today. I haven't seen that brand name since back when I was working at a gas station.
this is the best write up I've seen on generally what happened and the general idea of how we best handled it/what to do if this situation happens to you If y'all want, I can write up what saved our bacon and what I'm adding/changing as well.
Holy shit, I used to take Stackers when I worked graveyard shift at a convenience store in the early '00s. That was back when they had real ephedrine. I would get wired on Stackers, then work and smoke cigarettes all night. That was a fun job, but I wouldn't want to do it for the rest of my life.