Blog

Procuring power quickly and efficiently has never been more important for utilities and community choice aggregators (CCAs).

In today's complex energy portfolio management landscape, independent power producers (IPPs) must balance the need to attract clean energy project investors with the challenge of simultaneously solving for long-term profitability, in which revenue maximization becomes as important an outcome as risk minimization.

For distributed energy generation developers, New York's Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) mechanism has proven to be a high-value alternative to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) wholesale market.

Battery energy storage owners and operators face an increasingly complicated power market landscape. As more storage comes online, competition increases in comparatively shallow ancillary services markets. Maximizing asset value requires complex state-of-charge (SOC) management decisions and difficult choices of how and when to participate in ancillaries or energy across day-ahead and real-time markets. Choosing the right automated bid optimization software can often make the difference between profit and loss.

Sitting squarely at the epicenter of the AI revolution, data centers are driving immense load growth in energy markets.

In both the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and ISO-New England (ISO-NE) electricity markets, the challenges and costs of meeting load growth and clean energy goals are becoming increasingly apparent.

The energy transition during a second Trump administration will contain opportunities and uncertainties for energy project owners and developers. Beyond media narratives, the stated goals of the incoming Trump administration present a somewhat more nuanced approach to energy policy.

Demand for clean energy and clean energy capacity remains strong throughout Europe, driven by national policy commitments, energy security concerns, and long-term expectations of structurally high gas prices.

In today's energy markets, maximizing revenue from energy resources requires an understanding of opportunity costs, rather than legacy production costs, as generators increasingly account for uncertainty in their price bidding behaviors.

The era of surplus capacity in PJM and MISO is ending. After years of low-capacity prices in an over-built system, load growth, retirements, and evolving reliability modeling are driving a resurgence in capacity value.

Accelerating load growth and thermal retirements mean fundamental changes for supply stacks and enormous opportunities for developers and off-takers. With many more projects in interconnection queues than can plausibly be built, however, the market for power purchase agreements (PPAs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has grown increasingly complicated.

As renewables and storage increasingly drive energy price formation, forecasts must evolve to account for the new market dynamics of the energy transition.

Developers, corporations, and utilities face increasingly complicated decisions when considering how, where, and when to invest in renewable projects while trying to meet evolving carbon reduction goals. Is it safe to assume that today's carbon emissions standards will hold true throughout the multi-decade lifecycle of a project, or should stakeholders look for – and find ways to account for – more efficient decarbonization strategies?

Cooperation among Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) utilities has slowly been building momentum amid a backdrop of renewable buildout, thermal retirements, and clean energy policy evolution. This expansion may be close to a tipping point toward much broader market expansion. A seismic shift looms as SPP and CAISO compete to expand their market operations into the WECC, potentially ushering in a new era of price transparency and transaction capability.

In a  recent webinar  previewing the Ascend ERCOT 5.1b Market Report, Dr. Gary Dorris, CEO at Ascend Analytics, joined Dr. Brent Nelson, Managing Director of Markets and Strategy, to discuss ERCOT market dynamics, renewable-driven volatility, and new ERCOT incentives to create the driving force to pull in new capacity.

2023 proved to be an anomalous year for electricity prices in CAISO, driven by an unlikely combination of mild summer weather, abundant hydro generation, low gas prices, and an absence of heat waves.

Despite aggressive clean energy mandates in New York and the New England states, cost concerns have begun to test policy commitments. Rising peak demand, increasing capacity prices, a shift to winter peaks, and a scarcity of capacity resources further complicates the renewable energy development outlook in New York ISO (NYISO) and New England ISO (ISO-NE).

Soaring load growth, rapidly increasing electricity demand, and significant additions of intermittent renewable resources to the supply stack have produced observable shifts in real-time price peaks and associated high volatility.

Batteries are uniquely poised to earn supernormal returns during the energy transition. However, the long-term uncertainty of storage value, as well as the variability of revenue capture by storage, can challenge the ability of low-risk, low-cost investors to provide the capital needed to accelerate renewable energy storage deployment across the U.S.

Substantial opportunities exist for merchant storage projects to capitalize on renewable-driven volatility in energy markets, especially in CAISO and ERCOT, which are projected to grow at 20% through 2029.  

The reality of weather as the new fuel driving power market volatility necessitates an active approach to energy portfolio risk management. In a recent Portfolio Management webinar, Scott Wrigglesworth, Vice President of Operations & Strategy for Ascend Analytics, and Dr. Carlos Blanco, Managing Director of Risk Management & ESG for Ascend Analytics, discuss how Ascend active portfolio management facilitates well-informed decisions that optimize value over time, reduce financial risk, and improve the ability to monitor progress toward environmental goals.

Resource planners must ensure resource adequacy and maximize economic value with the energy transition. Because a greater portion of energy supply flows from renewables and battery storage, maintaining reliability requires more advanced reliability planning that captures the impact of weather on unit outages, energy production, and transmission lines.

Synthesizing the PPA market, Ascend concludes the bull market for clean energy suppliers continues with increases in prices across all U.S. power markets. Project delays and procurement mandates combine to stretch timelines and fall short of swelling market demand.

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) presents multiple renewable energy opportunities for off-takers, developers, and utilities. With 20% load growth during the past eight years and 6 GW of announced coal retirements (reflecting nearly 25% of coal capacity), SPP has immediate capacity needs.

Renewable energy project developers and offtakers face a rapidly changing landscape when it comes to mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables holds the potential to create cycles of excess and shortages in electricity supply, leading to both depressed and extreme prices.

In a rapidly shifting renewable energy landscape, successfully operating battery storage assets offers significant opportunities, risks, and challenges related to resource adequacy, cost, regulation, and quality assurance.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology and extended-duration storage look more promising than ever.

Navigating the energy transition requires innovation both in terms of technology and methodology.

Electricity procurement challenges require anything but one-size-fits-all solutions.

For the renewable energy storage industry to continue to grow and thrive, decision makers must address risk while preserving profitability.

The increasingly volatile renewables and storage (RS) development market presents significant risks and opportunities for developers.

Throughout California, aggressive climate legislation has set the stage for carbon-free planning (CFP). Despite challenges related to affordability and reliability, CFP has generated widespread community enthusiasm throughout the Golden State, pushing Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) and municipal utilities to implement even more aggressive climate goals.

As the renewable and storage industry matures, asset valuations continue to shift in response to major changes in policy and macroeconomic outlook.

Corporate decision makers face an increasingly complex landscape when it comes to sustainable energy procurement.

In an era of oversubscribed interconnection queues, gridlocked transmission, and increasingly complex load modellling, the electric industry will have to adopt a new lens to meet the ever-growing demand of a grid increasingly fueled by clean energy.

The Ascend Summit brings together prominent electric power experts to offer fresh perspectives on wholesale electricity.

In this video, David Millar presents the results of the proposed Arizona Energy Rules cost analysis, performed in conjunction with the three investor-owned utilities in Arizona. Mr. Millar shows the costs of the clean energy pathway are modest compared to a business-as-usual approach, but also that innovation is needed to rein in costs of decarbonizing the last 20 percent of emissions.

Watch Video

In this 'Meet the Experts' video, Dr. Gary Dorris discusses the importance of assessing Tuolumne river flow in sustaining economic livelihood for Turlock Irrigation District.