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. These fundamental market changes pose significant challenges to hedging approaches and instruments traditionally used by energy retailers.

In a recent webinar, Dr. Gary Dorris, CEO of Ascend Analytics, Devdatt Maganty, Senior Manager of Portfolio Management, and Carley Dolch, Director of Business Development, share advanced hedging strategies that allow energy retailers to maintain profitability and construct future-proof portfolios amid razor-thin margins and unpredictable market dynamics.

Key Takeaways

• Average monthly position hedging exposes energy retailers to market risks, because average forwards do not account for intra-month or intra-day volatility. To maximize value and minimize risk, retailers need views of hourly and sub-hourly load and price relationships.
• Energy retailers need access to better analytics and better models to more clearly understand overall portfolio risk and how to mitigate it quickly and effectively.  
• Ascend's PowerSIMM™ platform provides optimized hedging that mitigates financial exposure and reduces costs by matching hedges with hourly attributes of weather, load, price, and costs to serve load, rather than through block or average hedges that can cause unexpected financial pain by failing to capture granular volatility.  
• Market prices strongly signal the value of storage for retail portfolios. Significant arbitrage opportunities exist in ERCOT, for example, which has DART spreads of $9.25/MWh, on average. Flexible storage allows energy retailers to maximize revenue by settling at real-time prices rather than day-ahead prices.

Access the full webinar now

Interested in Learning More? 

The PowerSIMM™ energy analytics platform offers portfolio management, valuation, and resource reliability and planning capabilities leveraging Ascend’s high-resolution analytic approach and Ascend Market Intelligence™.  Contact us to learn more.   

Ascend Analytics is the leading provider of market intelligence and analytics solutions for the energy transition. The company’s offerings enable decision makers in power development and supply procurement to maximize the value of planning, operating, and managing risk for renewable, storage, and other assets. 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.