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In the United States in the early 90's, a character by the name of
Kenneth Lay was one of those who lead the push for the US to create
an electricity energy market.
Lay was the CEO of the now infamous Enron.
In 2000 and 2001, what became known as the "California energy crises"
resulted in California having a shortage of electricity and blackouts
caused by an artificial shortage illegally orchestrated by Enron.
Energy traders intentionally took capacity offline for "maintenance" on
days of peak demand to raise the market price.
The deregulation of California's energy market made it possible and the
blackouts affected millions of people and businesses.
Many will remember the 'Enron scandal' that resulted in Enron going
bankrupt and Kenneth Lay being indicted by a grand jury and being
found guilty of securities fraud.
Lay died of a heart attack whilst on vacation awaiting sentencing.
Many Electrical Engineers had warned that the power grid had been
engineered with the primary goal of reliability and warned it had
not been designed to become a dynamic platform for market traders.
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