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Mike Huisenga leads Ascend’s energy storage and renewables bid optimization platform, SmartBidder, providing strategic leadership, and overseeing product strategy and customer success.. Mike's experience in renewable energy and sustainability spans two decades, including 15 years at WSP, the largest global engineering and environmental professional services firm, where he served as SVP and oversaw the delivery of technical services for renewable energy projects in the US.
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Erik Schwartz works with financial institutions investing in energy, guiding investment teams through quantitative insights that strengthen asset valuation, portfolio strategy, and long-term decision planning. With more than two decades in energy-market leadership across Refinitiv, EnergyGPS, Energy Ventures Analysis, Genscape, and Point Carbon, Erik developed a skill set centered on market intelligence and commercial development that supports disciplined capital deployment.
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Connor Donovan develops long-term fundamental power market forecasts across U.S., with a focus on WECC and price formation, resource adequacy, and asset valuation. He works closely with modeling teams to translate market dynamics into actionable insights for developers, utilities, and investors. Prior to joining Ascend, Connor served as a Power Generation Analyst at the International Energy Agency, contributing to the World Energy Outlook and related publications.
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Corie Llera works with energy companies and market participants to drive commercial strategy and adoption of analytics solutions at Ascend Analytics, aligning market intelligence and modeling capabilities with evolving business needs across power markets. Prior to joining Ascend, Corie held account management roles at Uplight and Voltus, where she supported customer engagement and program execution across demand-side and distributed energy initiatives.
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Dan Sapien is a Senior Account Manager at Ascend Analytics, bringing over a decade of account management leadership across Schneider Electric, Cognizant/American Express, and Sisense. With a degree in Business Sustainability, Dan has driven energy efficiency programs for clients including McDonald's USA and Starbucks. His deep software expertise bridges client insights and product development, delivering measurable, value-driven outcomes in energy and financial markets.
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Joseph Chavez, Director of Analytics, supports asset valuation, market analysis, and strategy across North American power markets, bringing over 15 years of experience in financial and wholesale energy markets with expertise in production cost modeling, capacity expansion, and grid decarbonization. Prior to Ascend, Joseph focused on project and VPPA valuation, revenue optimization, and decarbonization initiatives for the U.S. government. Joseph also led development of Hitachi Energy’s North American Power Reference Case and held roles at Enel Green Power, OCI Solar Power, NREL, and BlackRock.
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Ari Greenberg leads Ascend Analytics’ growth and go-to-market strategy, overseeing business development, demand generation, and customer success. He aligns commercial execution with measurable customer outcomes across utilities, developers, IPPs, corporates, and financial institutions. Ari brings decades of leadership experience across energy analytics and SaaS, with prior roles at Zema Global, Darcy Partners, AlphaSense, and S&P Global.
ConnectThe value of standalone storage and renewables plus storage can be significantly increased through analytics that continuously optimize operations. This presentation will introduce proven techniques to improve the economic intelligence of ISO bids, both day-ahead and real-time, surpassing traditional trader-based systems. Key topics include how optimization algorithms align battery attributes with market dynamics and the impact of predicting real-time price spikes on operational strategies. The session will also cover the benefits of using predictive price analytics within a probabilistic framework, which offers more value than relying on absolute price forecasts. Additionally, a case study will highlight how these analytics-driven optimization techniques can boost storage project revenues by 30% compared to conventional methods.
Ascend Analytics is the leading provider of market intelligence and analytics solutions for the power industry. The company’s offerings enable decision makers in power supply, procurement, and investment markets to plan, operate, monetize, and manage risk across any energy asset portfolio. From real-time to 30-year horizons, their forecasts and insights are at the foundation of over $50 billion in project financing assessments. Ascend provides energy market stakeholders with the clarity and confidence to successfully navigate the rapidly shifting energy landscape.
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