Ascend Energy Exchange™

Marketplace for Renewable Energy and Storage Projects

The Ascend Energy Exchange (AEXTM), a marketplace for renewable and storage projects, streamlines the process of clean energy procurement and project sales by creating a highly competitive process through the Ascend ecosystem of energy consumers and asset owners. AEX serves two distinct capabilities:

This full-service platform, backed by Ascend's industry-leading nodal and sub-hourly economic valuations, combines expertise and an extensive energy community network to create a highly streamlined and competitive process that significantly reduces transaction costs.

Clean Energy Procurement Services

Ascend Analytics has helped procure over 10 million megawatt-hours per year of renewable energy and 12,000 MWh of battery storage capacity for its customers.

Designed for Corporate Renewable Energy buyers, Utilities, and Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), our clean energy procurement services provide a more competitive process (with 3 to 5 times the bidders as buyer run processes). Ascend realizes additional participation based on our brand and extensive relationships with the power developers. For the buyer, we provide comprehensive economic valuation and carbon free energy (CFE) analysis of bid projects through a highly automated RFO process to rapid bid processing and selection of a short-list.  

The result is a least cost supply portfolio with minimized risk and forward-looking value of energy and CFE on an annual and 24x7 basis.

Comprehensive Support at Every Step

Resource RFO Processes

Ascend provides end-to-end support throughout the energy resource procurement process, including:

  • Material preparation for solicitation with customized offer forms
  • Marketing the procurement leveraging Ascend's partnership network
  • Hosting services for document submission and communications with bidders
  • Bidder conference and Q&A support
  • Automated screening and compliance verification of submission packages
  • Advanced modeling of project and PPA specific attributes
  • Shortlisting management and supplemental modeling support during negotiations

True Carbon Free Energy Procurement

Today, proper Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) valuation requires looking into the future, where REC prices are evolving toward an hourly attribute, diminishing the present value of solar and increasing the present value wind and storage.

Clean Energy Position by Month Hour

Clean Energy Position by Month Hour chart

Ascend Analytics' forward-looking modeling captures the hourly and sub-hourly clean energy values that are becoming the new CFE standard. The analysis incorporates an array of factors including resource performance versus hourly load obligation, basis (locational price difference) between resources and load, variability in production from resources, and forward and spot price uncertainty.

Ascend Analytics' clean energy procurement services provide the advanced tools necessary to capture the true value of renewable energy and storage resources specific to the offtaker's portfolio. With AEX, renewable energy procurement buyers leverage energy market intelligence and a data-driven bid process to reduce transaction friction and more accurately tap into the true value of assets.

Streamlined Asset Sales Process

The AEX marketplace offers the most competitive asset sale process for project developers and owner-operators. As a streamlined asset sale process, AEX engages on average 5 times the number of bidders as compared to other processes, because of the platform's trusted valuations and neutrality that serves buyers and sellers.

Ascend Analytics' streamlined program includes:

  • Independent market assessments of project value
  • Strategic bidder marketing campaigns highlighting the salient project attributes
  • Proven framework for generating a highly competitive sales process
  • Efficient workflows with multi-layered security & accountability
  • Transparent Q&A logs and multiple bidding rounds
  • AEX experts that understand the marketplace for renewable & storage projects and can opine on asset specifics

Example of AEX Portfolio

Example of AEX PortfolioDevelopment Progress

Vetted Opportunities, Qualified Community

AEX reduces transaction friction and costs by vetting assets, fostering trust in the data presented to buyers. As a result, AEX repeatably attracts a large community of qualified buyers to participate in each sale process, which typically spans just two months—outpacing traditional methods by a significant margin.

Proven Valuation for a Sustainable Future

As the industry leader, Ascend Analytics has conducted hundreds of project valuations that feature:

  • Advanced analytics, including economic and policy changes associated with increasing renewable energy, evolving power wholesale prices, growing volatility, and new price shapes driven by renewables
  • Simulated and accurate DA and RT prices at the nodal level that account for basis risk and localized renewable energy saturation and curtailment
  • Assessments for both individual resources and portfolios of resources, subject to minimum REC constraints

50GW


Merchant
Finance
Supported

15 GW


Non-recourse
Finance
Supported

300 GW


IRP + Other
Consulting
Work

$7.2B


Independent Economic
Assessments
Conducted

Industry Expertise and Leadership


Ascend Analytics' expertise is built on a foundation of hundreds of renewable and storage project transactions. With AEX, users gain access to:

  • Projects sourced from 200+ developers within the Ascend Analytics' platform ecosystem
  • Independent market assessments of asset values and financial modeling
  • A streamlined program that accelerates deal closure and reduces due diligence
  • Significantly improved cost-efficiency

The Ascend Advantage

Ready Analytics

"Ready to Roll" analytics and preconfigured models for any region or node

Insights

Critical insights for portfolio management in a high renewables future

Expertise

Our expertise includes planning, valuation, risk management & ISO operations

Unlock the AEX Advantage

The AEX marketplace facilitates successful and mutually beneficial transactions between sellers and prospective buyers - providing renewable energy procurement transactions at a fraction of the cost of a conventional sale process and enabling buyers and sellers to seamlessly transact with costly overhead. Redefine the way you engage in clean energy transactions and drive progress toward a sustainable and prosperous future.

Learn more about the Ascend Energy Exchange - contact us today!