Hello, Power Market Lovers!
I’d like to comment on the only thing where I am more qualified than anyone else on Earth: the annual Yes Energy customer conference. I’m the only person with perfect attendance, you see. Take it from me, our 2026 EMPOWER event was quite impressive. Wow!
My opening remarks were the result of a dare from our marketing team to see if I could muster a personally uncharacteristic level of “swagger” on behalf of the great work so much of our product and operations teams do to support customers every week of the year. (In 2025 alone, we collected 62,966,768,740 rows of data.) Google’s Gemini told me that my Yes Energy-themed tracksuit was the best way to dress for such an effort.
Source: Yes Energy. President and CEO Michael McNair discussed growing power market concerns at EMPOWER.
But this week, the swagger for the event itself was earned by our marketing team and also by 120 other Yes Energy employees who were there working to welcome, support, train, and hear opinions from a record 350 customers! What a great event. Teamwork in action!
Source: Yes Energy
While the resources on the grid are changing and demand is growing, congestion is increasing.
What will it take to succeed in that environment? I believe it will take more market entrants and capital, which is already happening, as you can see in the chart below, with ERCOT as a leader.
Source: ERCOT, NEISO, MISO, CAISO, PJM, NYISO, and SPP. There are about 7,500 registered entities total.
And there are so many people to thank! First off, there’s the astonishingly long list of guest presenters. (As an aside, I’ll say that my time slot of speaking at our customer event seems to shrink every year. But it’s happening because we have so many smart industry experts who are willing to help us all learn.)
Special thanks to Dr. Jesse Jenkins for his presentation titled “A Rock and A Hard Place: Challenges and Solutions to Meet the Data Center Demand Crunch.” He helped us understand novel policy and economic approaches to creating flexibility—where we’d come to think there may be none—around the load growth associated with data center demand.
Source: Jesse Jenkins via Nathaniel Bullard, Decarbonization 2026, from US Census Bureau data
We truly were blessed to have Jon Wellinghoff (the longest-ever-serving FERC chair) help us figure out what to make of changes afoot at the federal level.
Source: Yes Energy. Former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff shared his perspective on the changing federal landscape.
And I want to share a very personal thank you to my friend Jack Farley, who helped us think about trends in energy spreads on an interregional and cross-grid basis—a topic of special strategic relevance to Jack and his peers at Grid United, who are among a small number of investors in large-scale transmission projects.
Source: Yes Energy. Jack Farley, chief commercial officer at Grid United, discussed five major fundamentals that impact energy price spreads.
Perhaps the most anticipated session of the conference was the discussion on western market expansion with Elliot Mainzer (president and CEO of CAISO) and Lanny Nickell (president and CEO of SPP). Robert Mullin, our deputy editor of RTO Insider, moderated a spirited, but friendly and at times funny, discussion between these two leaders who are engaged in a rigorous competition for capital and participation out in the market itself. It delivered. Thank you to Elliot Mainzer and Lanny Nickell!
One Yes Energy customer commented, “The dialogue underscored that Western expansion is fundamentally about enhancing reliability and affordability for millions of ratepayers across the Western states—while enabling more efficient regional coordination. At its core, it is about striking the right balance between physics and economics, and effectively managing the operational and market complexities at the ‘seams.’”
Source: Yes Energy. Lanny Nickell, left, and Elliot Mainzer, center, discussed expanding western markets.
I succeeded in reconnecting with longtimers in the industry, such as Jeff Cravens from DTE Energy and Brad Nesiba from Rainbow Energy Marketing Corporation. I even gifted Michael Wynder from DRW, the only customer to have attended our very first customer event in 2009, his own honorary tracksuit. By the way, I created a bit of a problem for myself right there, as I was prepared to give away two tracksuits that day. It seemed like 200 people were asking me, “Where’s mine?” the rest of the week!
Perhaps the most rewarding thing to witness was collaboration in action. Our EnCompass and PowerCore sessions were robustly attended by utilities and IPPs from across the country. Watching those sessions was like witnessing a room full of conscientious students, each trying to learn, but also willing to share with the rest of the class.
How to best model energy storage, where AI can most effectively support settlements, and of course, what features we need to build next were just some of the enthusiastic topics and collaboration that broke out.
I was beaming with pride that Yes Energy is helping the industry come together in ways that we really need to meet the moment of market transformation happening right now.
EMPOWER 26 was also supported by sponsors, including IIR Energy, S&P Global, Atmospheric G2, LSEG, NGI, Sunairio, and Vaisala. Thank you to these great companies that are also doing great work in the world’s most important industry.
Source: Yes Energy
Of course, there’s also the Yes Energy staff to thank. A total of 130 of Yes Energy’s experts, developers, analysts, correspondents, support reps, sales managers, and company leaders worked hard to build engaging presentations that they rehearsed thoroughly.
Every year, we proudly prove that we have the most eager and talented set of tech folks in the industry who are ready to get up on stage and share what they know. They demonstrated how we support our customers’ AI and forecasting. They updated the audience on regulatory, market, and data changes happening in the markets.
Source: Yes Energy
And of course, our product experts trained us on the latest valuable product features, while taking input on what customers think should be on the road map next. If interested, you can see the full agenda.
Customers shared feedback that the event was “highly impactful” and “full of relevant candid discussions,” and of course, they reflected that “there’s nothing better than connecting in person.” I agree with that 100%. That’s why we’ve held this event for the last 17 years! Thank you to all of you who made the trip. We hope to see all of you again next year.
If you missed EMPOWER 26, there’s room for you to come next year too. Sign up for our emails, so you can be the first to register for 2027!