Texas utility regulators are to decide in April whether to ban trading practices that caused wholesale electricity costs to spike by $70 million over a two-day period in February.

The trading practice – known as ‘hockey stick’ bidding due to the shape of the price curve it creates – entails a company offering a small amount of its power supplies at extremely high prices when the market is tight.

The Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) says the practice helped push prices in the Electric