That's not actually what happened here. ERCOT was letting bids come in at crazy prices because at that point the only thing they were paying attention to was whether the Texas grid would collapse entirely. Volts and watts mattered. Dollars? A shared illusion anyway.

Now, not only did Griddy put its users at risk of high bills with these prices, the utilities bankrupted themselves putting these bids in too. The wind farm operators could only laugh while they were getting these crazy bids for every watt from a turbine that wasn't iced up, because they knew they were getting paid with imaginary money, and they were operating the windmills because what the hell else could you do?

The nat gas operators, well, they needed real money because they needed to buy gas at crazy prices, and the nat gas drillers needed money to get crews out to thaw out their infrastructure, which is extra important because we're talking about working outdoors in dangerous weather, and the crews are Texans that had not seen weather like this before.

So TLDR, none of this makes any sense, and it will be settled in bankruptcy court.