Surplus solar in the Southwest has turned the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) upside down to create a new north and south divide, where the south has become the low-cost center of power while the north has some of the most consistent high power prices in the country.

In this webinar previewing Ascend's WECC Market Outlook, Dr. Gary Dorris, CEO at Ascend Analytics, Dr. Brent Nelson, Managing Director of Markets and Strategy, and Dominique Bain, Energy Markets Economist, discuss a market expansion tipping point in WECC. Leveraging Ascend MI™ energy market intelligence, they also highlight rapidly accelerating opportunities for renewable energy project development and contracting in the western US.

Access this webinar now, or read more about Ascend's WECC market outlook.

ERCOT is experiencing quickly rising demand, but ERCOT's electrical isolation from the rest of the country makes it more susceptible to volatility and scarcity conditions that result from a delicate supply and demand balance. While identifying as an energy-only market, ERCOT has implemented a variety of capacity revenue mechanisms to incentivize new generators, with critical conditions and revenues shifting toward longer duration resources.

Years of long system conditions, low capacity prices, and tightening environmental regulations have placed mounting economic pressure on PJM's thermal assets. Now, PJM is faced with the prospect of widespread thermal retirements amid delayed resource additions and the challenge of meeting significant demand growth from AI-driven data centers and electrification. This webinar will discuss Ascend's view on the dynamics of the PJM power market and the economic outlook for power generators and clean energy development as these driving forces reverberate across REC, capacity, and energy prices.

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. A storm is coming, however. Aggressive decarbonization policy mandates, record demand for renewable energy, and rapidly increasing load growth signify a robust need for new capacity resources and will present serious challenges for system reliability.

In this webinar previewing the Ascend CAISO 5.1 Market Report, Dr. Gary Dorris, CEO at Ascend Analytics, joined Dr. Brent Nelson, Managing Director of Markets and Strategy, to discuss the underlying structural power market challenges that lie ahead in CAISO.  

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, and a scarcity of capacity resources further complicates the renewable energy development outlook in New York ISO (NYISO) and New England ISO (ISO-NE).

In a recent webinar, Dr. Gary Dorris, CEO of Ascend Analytics, and Dr. Brent Nelson, Managing Director of Markets and Strategy, discuss key developments, updates, and complications in northeastern energy markets, as well as Ascend's latest market forecasts for NYISO and ISO-NE.

In this webinar, we discuss our outlook on the SPP power market, identifying key dynamics and opportunities for renewables and storage.

As solar buildout grows in ERCOT, critical grid conditions are increasingly becoming associated with sunset net load ramps. Whether wind generation falters or rises with the setting sun determines the magnitude of the daily ramp and is the key driver for ERCOT price dynamics. As a result, wind can either cause ‘superduck’ ramps or squash price volatility. In this webinar, we will provide an overview of Ascend’s latest ERCOT forecast and the outlook for market forwards, scarcity, surpluses, and clean energy economics.

In this webinar, we will discuss Ascend's latest market outlooks for PJM and MISO as elevated gas prices, passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, and continued clean energy demand from policy and ESG goals have strengthened the outlook for clean energy and clean capacity resources.