Vedeni Energy’s Deep Dive

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 a...

I was reviewing a press release from American Electric Power this morning, and one name caught my attention. They had just appointed Aaron Walker to lead a group called the Nuclear Development Organization. If you’ve been in this industry for more than a few years, you know that the words "nuclear" and "development" haven't appeared together in the same sentence for quite some time. For decades, t...

You’ve probably spent the last year watching your inbox fill up with "must-have" tools that promise to do your job in half the time. Your company has likely invested a small fortune in licenses, pilots, and training sessions. But if you’re honest, you haven’t seen the payoff yet. Your team is still working late, projects are still lagging, and the promised efficiency feels like a mirage. You aren’...

The week ending March 13, 2026, was marked by widespread operational stability across North American wholesale power markets as systems transitioned into the spring shoulder season. Real-time energy prices stayed relatively low and stable across most footprints, reflecting moderate seasonal demand and healthy reserve margins. This calm in operations provided a backdrop for a surge in long-term str...

I was reading the news this morning and saw a sign of exactly where our industry is heading. American Electric Power just announced Adrian Rodriguez as the new president and COO of AEP Texas. If you don't know Adrian, he isn't your typical operations guy who spent thirty years designing substations or managing line crews. He’s a regulatory lawyer by training. He’s spent his career navigating the h...

You have the strategy. You have the slides. You even have the budget. But by the time your team starts moving, the world has already shifted. It’s that feeling of running as hard as you can, only to realize you’re on a treadmill.  This isn't just about staying busy. It's about a fundamental shift in how we convert intent into action. Deloitte recently released its 2026 Human Capital Trends, and th...

North American wholesale electricity markets during the week ending March 6, 2026, focused on structural integration and infrastructure resilience. In the Eastern Interconnection, PJM took decisive regulatory action by filing proposals for an expedited interconnection track and extending its capacity price collar to address the unprecedented demand from data centers. Meanwhile, MISO and ERCOT incr...

So, I was catching up with a friend from the transmission team the other day, and he told me something that sums up where our industry is right now. He has two different piles on his desk. One is a stack of interconnection requests from renewable developers that he hasn’t touched in weeks because the grid is full. The other is a folder from a massive data center developer who wants to bypass the g...

For the past five years, we've been fixated on employee engagement. We've spent billions on survey tools, bean bags, and "culture committees" to ensure everyone is happy. But now, as we sit here in March 2026, the trend has shifted. The latest data from Lattice reveals that, for the first time, performance has surpassed engagement as the top priority for leadership teams. It's a major shift. We’re...

North American wholesale power markets during the week ending February 27, 2026, focused on long-term infrastructure planning and regulatory changes to support rapid load growth driven by data centers and the energy transition. PJM and ERCOT took the lead with significant efforts to speed up interconnection processes and introduce new reliability reserve services, respectively. Federal regulators...

So, I was reviewing a supply chain report the other day, and one number caught my eye: 210 weeks. That’s how long it might take to get a large power transformer right now. Doing the math, that’s four years-four years of waiting for a single piece of equipment. If that transformer fails tomorrow and you don’t have a spare, your project-or even your overall reliability-could be at a standstill until...

Pull up a chair and let's get real for a minute. You may have noticed that your org chart is looking flatter lately. Maybe a lot flatter. Over the past year, we've seen a huge shift in how companies are structured. Layers of middle management are being removed, and the managers who remain are being asked to do something that seems impossible: lead larger teams, handle more complexity, and still st...

North American wholesale power markets during the week ending February 20, 2026, showed a clear shift from mid-winter volatility toward operational stability as temperatures warmed across much of the Eastern and Southern United States. This stability was marked by real-time peak price trends returning to normal across major hubs, supported by strong solar energy recoveries in the West and reduced...

As thousands of industry professionals walked around DTECH in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, the atmosphere was different than usual. Usually, these events focus on the next big battery or a shiny new turbine. But this year, the hottest discussions were about something practical: we are running out of space on our power lines.  If you've been examining your company's planning maps, you know what...

Something significant is happening in the corner offices of corporate America, and it's not another AI update. We are currently witnessing the start of the great generational shift. As Boomers and Gen X executives begin to retire, a new wave of leadership is emerging, and they aren't interested in the old rules.  If you've been following the return-to-office debates, you've probably seen headlines...

North American wholesale electricity markets during the week ending February 13, 2026, were mainly shaped by Winter Storm Fern, which tested grid resilience and winterization efforts across the Eastern Interconnection and ERCOT. Despite increased demand and localized price spikes, the bulk power system remained stable, supported by strong battery storage performance and better fuel assurance measu...

So, I was catching up on the news this morning with a second cup of coffee and saw something that really made me stop. The Tennessee Valley Authority just voted to keep their Kingston and Cumberland coal plants running indefinitely. If you’ve been following the industry for the last few years, you know how big of a deal that is. Not long ago, every headline was about the "end of coal" and how fast...

Grab a coffee, because we need to talk about something that's likely draining the life out of your team. You've felt it. Your managers have felt it. It's that feeling of ending a ten-hour day and realizing you didn't actually accomplish much. You spent the day on back-to-back digital calls, answered four hundred messages, and filled out three different spreadsheets that all ask for the same inform...

North American wholesale power markets during the week ending February 6, 2026, were characterized by an intense focus on long-term grid reliability and the structural challenges of integrating unprecedented levels of large-scale industrial load. As regions recovered from the volatility of a major late-January winter storm, grid operators like ERCOT and PJM held critical workshops to refine 'Batch...

Imagine you're at a dinner party, and someone asks about your job. You explain that you help manage the electric grid. They probably picture large coal plants, spinning turbines, and towering metal structures across the landscape. That's the grid most of us have known for a century. It's a top-down, one-way system where power begins at a big plant and ends up in a toaster. But if you attended the...

Your employees can tell when you're not genuine. They might not say it directly. They may nod in town halls and respond to your Slack messages with appropriate emojis. But somewhere between your carefully crafted values statement and the decisions you actually make, they've noticed a gap. And that gap costs you more than you realize. We don't have a leadership crisis in organizations today; we hav...

North American wholesale power markets during the week ending January 30, 2026, faced their most significant operational challenge of the year as a severe winter storm and arctic blast swept across the southern Plains and into the Southeast. Grid operators in the storm's path, including ERCOT and SPP, issued emergency notices and conservative operation advisories as freezing temperatures and ice a...

Here's a scenario that should keep utility executives awake at night. Your company just received approval for a $2 billion transmission expansion project. The regulators signed off, the financing is secured, and the equipment is on order. There's just one issue: you can't find enough people to build it. This isn't hypothetical. According to the U. S. Department of Energy's 2025 United States Energ...

Somewhere right now, a middle manager is staring at their laptop at 9 PM, juggling an inbox full of urgent requests from senior leadership while mentally preparing for tomorrow's tough conversation with a struggling team member. Their to-do list grew by twelve items today. They crossed off four. And they just received word that their peer in the next department was laid off last week, which means...

North American wholesale electricity markets during the week ending January 23, 2026, were marked by a shift toward increased winter operational preparedness and notable regulatory actions addressing the rapid growth of large-scale loads. In the Eastern Interconnection, PJM and NYISO experienced heightened volatility as winter demand and localized supply constraints drove real-time prices to seaso...