Vedeni Energy’s Deep Dive

Spring Shoulder Markets and Western Transition Activity

North American wholesale electricity markets experienced a typical spring shoulder week characterized by generally moderate demand, increased renewable generation in several regions, and limited signs of widespread system stress. In the West, California ISO activity was driven more by policy and implementation efforts than by emergency operations: the ISO advanced its 2026 market-policy prioritization process, extended comment periods on storage design questions, issued updated RC West operating procedures, and continued preparations for Day-Ahead Market Enhancements and EDAM parallel operations. Meanwhile, SPP reached an operational milestone by completing its April 1 western RTO expansion, highlighting that both market footprint evolution and governance design are becoming as important this spring as short-term price formation.

In the central and eastern markets, the main theme continued to focus on market design, queue reform, and large-load or transmission readiness rather than urgent scarcity pricing. ERCOT issued routine operations messages but also highlighted a Taylor County contingency and a Railroad DC Tie derate, showing that localized operating issues still matter even during milder weeks. MISO persisted in pushing for interconnection and planning reforms, including queue improvements and the joint MISO-SPP targeted interconnection framework, while PJM stakeholders advanced a set of initiatives aimed at managing data-center load growth and progressing with its reformed interconnection process. In Canada, Alberta’s REM rule implementation and Ontario’s export-surcharge and capacity auction discussions kept policy risk and market redesign high on the agenda. Around the region, the week indicated that spring 2026 is becoming a transition period not only for weather and demand but also for market structure.

The New Power Fight: Data Centers, Electric Bills, and the Manager’s Job in the Middle

Recent discussions across the U.S. electric power industry have consistently focused on a key issue: leaders are trying to figure out how to handle large data-center loads, who should finance the necessary grid expansions, and how to maintain reliability and customer trust throughout the process. This concern has appeared in various forms, from a Texas legislative hearing, comments from regulators and grid operators, updates on utility special contracts, to reports on flexible load and ongoing warnings from reliability and planning organizations. When the same challenge keeps emerging across different parts of the industry, it usually indicates that managers need to stop viewing it solely as a forecasting issue and start addressing it as an operational challenge.

The Manager’s New Job in 2026: Turning AI Hype into Useful Work

Over the past week, online leadership discussions have focused more than anything else on one issue: what managers are supposed to do now that AI has moved from pilot projects into everyday work. This isn't based on a single headline. It's reflected in survey data, executive research, HR guidance, and company decisions. Gartner reported that 45% of managers said AI had improved their teams’ work as much as they expected, but only 14% said they faced no challenges in helping their teams use it effectively. This gap reveals a lot. Teams see some benefits, but the truly difficult part has begun. The hard part isn't purchasing another tool; it's deciding how work should change, who owns what, what good output looks like, and how to maintain trust as the ground shifts beneath people’s feet.

White Paper: The Growing Role of Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES)

This White Paper examines the strategic transition from short-term battery solutions toward long-duration energy storage (LDES) to ensure a dependable, low-carbon power grid. While lithium-ion batteries currently dominate the market by managing brief peaks and frequency stability, they are often uneconomical for the multi-day shortfalls caused by variable weather or seasonal shifts.

The paper explores a diverse range of emerging technologies, such as iron-air and flow batteries, which offer cost-effective alternatives for discharging power over ten to one hundred hours. Despite their potential, these innovations face hurdles including market designs that prioritize quick cycles over long-term reliability and the need for significant capital investment.

Federal initiatives like the Long Duration Storage Shot and new tax incentives are beginning to address these gaps by fostering a roadmap for commercial adoption. Ultimately, a diversified storage portfolio is essential for maintaining grid resilience as the United States integrates higher levels of renewable energy.

Planning Reforms and Spring Operations

Across North American wholesale power markets, the week of March 21–27, 2026, was characterized more by ongoing efforts in structural reform than by widespread reliability emergencies. In the West, CAISO’s week focused on changes to transmission-planning schedules, EDAM and DAME market simulations and parallel operations, and updates to daily market-watch, renewable, storage, and queue materials. SPP’s week concentrated on its transition into the Consolidated Planning Process after FERC approval and on continuing development of the western markets through Markets+ and related stakeholder forums. In ERCOT and PJM, the main focus was on large-load and interconnection reforms, highlighting the ongoing impact of growth in data-center and other industrial loads on queue management, reliability planning, and market design.

Beyond the Chain-Link Fence: Why Physical Security is the Grid’s New Leadership Frontier

I was going over the latest report from the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) this morning, and the numbers are enough to keep any utility manager awake at night. We’re talking about more than 3,500 physical security breaches against U.S. and Canadian power grids in 2025, a rise of seven hundred incidents in just one year. If you think back to when we started in this industry, the substation fence was mainly there to keep wandering cows or curious kids away from the high-voltage equipment. It wasn’t built as a defense against a coordinated ballistic attack or a high-tech drone. 

The Agency Deficit: Why Senior Leaders are Quietly Checking Out

You’ve probably seen it, or maybe you’re feeling it yourself. It’s that moment in a senior leadership meeting when you look around the room and realize that half the people there aren’t really "there." They’re nodding, checking boxes, but the fire is gone. They aren't leading; they’re just surviving the week.

This isn't your typical burnout. We’ve discussed exhaustion and being overworked for years. What we’re observing now is a loss of agency. Leaders feel like they’ve become passengers in their own organizations, pushed around by endless regulations, board demands, and a constant stream of "urgent" tactical fires. Harvard Business Review recently highlighted this as a significant shift: leaders are beginning to withdraw because they feel they no longer have the power to make real changes.

Spring Shoulder Conditions and Market-Design Momentum

Across North American power markets, the week of March 14–20, 2026, was characterized more by market design, transmission planning, and interconnection work progressing alongside orderly shoulder-season operations than by urgent operational issues. In the West, CAISO continued publishing daily real-time market-watch reports while advancing EDAM and DAME implementation through parallel operations and stakeholder meetings. Meanwhile, SPP’s western expansion and Markets+ development remained key regional focuses. In ERCOT, the ongoing debate over large-load interconnection continued to shape policy and planning, with updated operational materials highlighting the extent of the active interconnection queue and transmission buildout under review. In Alberta, the provincial market transition gained momentum as government-backed REM ISO rules moved closer to implementation, and the AESO advanced work on financial transmission rights, data-center interconnection requirements, and transmission-planning reform.