But in general, if there's free entry into a marketplace, there's a check against this sort of behavior. Rising prices are not bad: they are a flashing signal that society desperately wants more of a particular good and to provide more of it as quickly as possible. If company X tried to cut production of any good in an area and boost up their prices, every entrepreneur out there gets a neon flashing message that there's a new way to profit mightily if they can provide that good.
That's why the Texas electrical grid is such a basketcase. Generators are paid for production but what you really need is spare capacity on peak days. The price excursions on a few hot or cold days are not nearly enough to incentivise building capacity that sits unused most of the year. In New England, on the contrary, generators are also paid for capacity, which is why one grid works and the other not at all.
But what is your overall argument and response to me here? Is it that because one heavily regulated and controlled market has some flaws, this means that free markets don't work in practice?
Just another form of price control, without calling it price control.