Running the AC on that day is not expensive due to financial agreements. It's intrinsically a resource intensive thing to do.
When you sign up for a fixed rate, it's baked in to the price that you will fire up your AC if you feel like it even when the grid is at capacity and power is extremely expensive.
Paying market rate doesn't mean you are blocked from firing up the AC. It might cost you $100 during a heat wave, but you've paid your power company $100 less throughout the year because you haven't been paying in instalments for your peak consumption days.
Being able to say fuck it, I'd rather be uncomfortable and save $100 is empowerment, not a burden.
In aggregate, those that make this decision would provide a lot of economic benefit. The peak is reduced and whole power plants can be decommissioned.
Some years ago (around five?) there was a big heat wave in Shanghai, and the subway stations filled with people who didn't want to pay for their own air conditioning.
It comes at the cost of many people wasting a portion of their lifetime waiting in a subway rather than doing almost anything else that they'd probably prefer doing.
For every 60K people that spent 12 hours sheltered in the subway, 80 human-years of life was consumed.
When you sign up for a fixed rate, it's baked in to the price that you will fire up your AC if you feel like it even when the grid is at capacity and power is extremely expensive.
Paying market rate doesn't mean you are blocked from firing up the AC. It might cost you $100 during a heat wave, but you've paid your power company $100 less throughout the year because you haven't been paying in instalments for your peak consumption days.
Being able to say fuck it, I'd rather be uncomfortable and save $100 is empowerment, not a burden.
In aggregate, those that make this decision would provide a lot of economic benefit. The peak is reduced and whole power plants can be decommissioned.