Several conventional generators had been achieving huge profits by engaging in so-called ‘off–on’ supply gaming: essentially, claiming an inability to deliver in the day-ahead market, which serves to push wholesale prices up, only then to actually deliver – and thereby exploit those inflated prices – in the real-time balancing market (see Chapter 2). As in the case of JPMVEC and California, such gaming did not contravene existing market rules. It was considered, rather, ungentlemanly.
