There are price spikes in most of electricity markets. This paper reviews the literature in recent years on price spike. First ,it analyzes the character of electricity price in a competitive markets, and introduces why price spikes occurred and which demand and supply factors affected spikes from economical prospect, and then forecasting model and controlling way of price spike are compared, the merit/demerit of each kind of model, way and their applying situation are given．Finally，further works are presented.