Market status — August 22, 2026
PJMWatch
NYISOWatch
ERCOTElevated
ISO-NEWatch
MISONormal
CAISOWatch
Emergency
Elevated
Watch
Normal
PJM — Quiet weekend pricing, but the 5CP window stays open through September
- 5CP Capacity Tags: The 2026 summer 5CP window remains open through September 30, and weekend load is not a realistic coincident-peak candidate. The peaks that matter are next week’s weekday afternoons; PJM’s forecasted peak load for the 2026/2027 Delivery Year rose by more than 5,400 MW year over year on data center and electrification growth, per PJM.
- Real-Time LMP: Prices closed the week soft. PJM posted zonal LMPs in the low $30s on the afternoon of August 21, with AECO at $33.64/MWh and AEP at $33.77/MWh, per PJM pricing tables. No congestion-driven separation worth flagging across Western Hub, NI Hub or AEP-Dayton.
- Demand Response: No dispatch events. The open item is structural: PJM’s board proposals for a backstop capacity auction and a large-load curtailment mechanism are pending before FERC, and the chairman has warned FERC will impose governance reforms if PJM does not act by September, per Utility Dive.
NYISO — Thin reliability margins keep ICAP positions in focus
- ICAP Tag Tracking: Routine monthly auction activity only. Load-serving entities should note that NYISO’s posted UCAP calculations and monthly auction summaries are the authoritative source for tag period changes, available through the NYISO ICAP market portal.
- CBEP Program Alerts: No Customer Benefit Emergency Participation alerts or activations in the past 24 hours.
- Day-Ahead Pricing: No unusual zonal separation today. The structural signal remains NYISO’s warning that New York’s reliability margins are the lowest in recent history, at roughly 417 MW available under baseline summer conditions, per Utility Dive. Separately, the NYISO Market Monitoring Unit is investigating fuel costs during the January cold snap that drove roughly $80 million in uplift, per RTO Insider.
ERCOT — 4CP season active with August and September peaks still to set
- 4CP Season Tracking: Texas is squarely inside the June–September 4CP window, and the August and September 15-minute peak intervals are still unresolved. ERCOT forecast a summer 2026 peak of 92,211 MW against an all-time peak of 85,508 MW set August 10, 2023, per the 2026 Summer Weather and Operations Outlook. Interval-level results are published on the ERCOT 4CP page.
- ORDC Pricing: No reserve shortfall or high ORDC adder events reported in the past 24 hours. Weekend load keeps operating reserves comfortable; the risk reopens with weekday afternoon heat.
- Grid Condition Alerts: No active Weather Watch, Watch, Warning or Conservation Alert on the ERCOT Weather Watch page. The live policy story is the state’s pause on new data center interconnections: ERCOT told the PUCT on August 20 it is targeting a December 10 filing to complete the governor’s audit of roughly 300 Batch Zero data centers, and warned the delay may push back its long-term load forecast and reliability assessment, per Utility Dive.
ISO-NE — Capacity market rebuild advances as region carries elevated-risk designation
- FCM Tag Events: No de-list bid deadlines or show-cause notices today. Participants tracking qualification should watch the interim reconfiguration auction qualification process for new resources targeting commercial operation before June 1, 2028, per the ISO-NE Capacity Auction Reforms key project.
- Capacity Market Integration: The prompt/deactivation component of Capacity Auction Reforms was accepted by FERC on March 30, 2026, with the seasonal and accreditation component expected to be filed in Q4 2026. The shift moves New England from a three-year forward auction to a prompt auction held shortly before the June 1, 2028 commitment period.
- Load Forecasting: Nothing acute for a late-August weekend. The standing concern is NERC’s 2026 Summer Reliability Assessment, which named NPCC–New England among three elevated-risk areas where operating reserves could fall short under above-normal conditions, consistent with FERC’s 2026 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability Assessment.
MISO — Adequate capacity and no notable zonal stress
- Zonal Pricing: No material LMP separation across Zones 4 through 7 and no binding constraints worth flagging in the past 24 hours.
- Planning Resource Auction: The 2026 PRA cleared with sufficient capacity for the June 2026–May 2027 planning year. Annualized prices came in at $126.19/MW-day for North/Central, $123.12 for Zone 9 and $116.06 for Zones 8 and 10, clearing 3.5% above the summer planning reserve margin target, per MISO. Zone 4 shows no shortfall this cycle.
- Real-Time Settlements: Nothing unusual in settlement intervals or make-whole payments. Stakeholders are pushing back on Tariff filings MISO plans to make by year end to free up an additional 5 to 10 GW of capacity, per RTO Insider.
CAISO — No Flex Alert, but structural curtailment keeps building
- Flex Alerts: None issued or pending. CAISO has not called a Flex Alert in more than two years, and no demand response call-outs were posted in the past 24 hours, per the CAISO Energy Matters blog.
- Renewable Curtailment: Overgeneration remains a structural rather than acute issue. Year-to-date through June 2026, CAISO curtailed roughly 1,460,005 MWh of wind and 1,448,995 MWh of solar, with June alone accounting for about 600,081 MWh, per CAISO Key Statistics. Same-day detail is on the current-day curtailment report.
- NQC Integration: No RA deficiency notices posted. The forward-looking item is load forecast uncertainty from AI data center growth, which CAISO is working to bring into its planning assumptions alongside the 2026 Summer Loads and Resources Assessment.
Cross-Market Watch — Large-load policy is the common thread
- Multi-ISO conditions: No extreme heat event, fuel supply disruption or NERC alert affecting multiple ISOs today. FERC’s summer assessment still projects total summer 2026 consumption of 1,587 TWh, up 3% year over year and the strongest summer growth since 2022, with aggregated peak demand up more than 11 GW since the 2025 assessment, per FERC.
- Regulatory activity: FERC approved SPP’s topology optimization plan for reducing grid congestion, a template other RTOs are likely to examine, per Utility Dive. Pennsylvania also issued an executive order offering expedited permitting to data centers that bring their own generation, a state-level counterpoint to the Texas interconnection pause, per Utility Dive.
- Week ahead: PJM faces a September deadline on governance and market design reforms before FERC acts on its own; ERCOT begins issuing large-load requests for information at the end of this month; ISO-NE’s seasonal and accreditation filing is expected in Q4.
HOW INTELLASTAR ENERGY ANALYST CAN HELP
Today’s conditions create specific opportunities — and risks — for your organization.
ERCOT — Elevated
Two of the four intervals that set your 2027 transmission bill have not happened yet.
Intellastar Energy Analyst watches ERCOT load against the running 4CP monthly peaks and tells you which afternoons actually warrant curtailing, so you are not paying attention on the wrong days. It ties each candidate interval back to your facility load so the avoided-cost math is on the table before you act.
PJM — Watch
A quiet weekend does not close the 5CP window, and capacity costs are rising underneath it.
Intellastar Energy Analyst tracks your PJM peak-load contribution against the running five coincident peaks and forecasts which upcoming weekday afternoons are live candidates. With PJM proposing a backstop auction and large-load curtailment rules, it also shows what those changes would do to your capacity obligation.
NYISO — Watch
With New York reserve margins this thin, your ICAP tag is a bigger line item than usual.
Intellastar Energy Analyst monitors your UCAP obligation across tag periods and flags when a single peak hour is about to lock in twelve months of capacity cost. It also keeps CBEP eligibility and activation history in one place so you can decide whether to enroll before the next tight day.