Introducing Real-Time Price Forecasts for ERCOT

We are excited to announce the launch of Amperon's Real-Time (RT) Price Forecasts for the ERCOT market. This release completes a comprehensive forecasting package in ERCOT, providing market participants with the essential forecasting tools to confidently and successfully operate in Texas. By combining our industry-leading Day-Ahead (DA) price, Real-Time (RT) price, Grid Demand, and Net Demand forecasts, customers can now construct a comprehensive forecast across all ERCOT’s zones and hubs.  

With this powerful suite of forecasting tools, market participants can optimize bal-day trading strategies, charging and discharging operations, and energy bidding through enhanced predictions of peaks and insights into intraday market conditions. Our new RT Price product provides a 3-day (72 hours) locational marginal price (LMP) forecast that is programmatically available by API at a 5-minute granularity, updated every 5 minutes for ERCOT’s zones and hubs.

Why Real-Time Price Forecasting Matters

In today's rapidly evolving energy markets, capturing value requires increasingly sophisticated forecasting capabilities. The ERCOT market, with its unique characteristics and volatility, presents both challenges and opportunities for market participants. Price swings in the Real-Time market can be substantial, creating significant arbitrage opportunities for those with accurate forecasting capabilities. Our Real-Time Price Forecasts provides 5-min granularity, refreshed every 5 minutes to provide the precision and timeliness needed to capitalize on these opportunities.

How Our Customers Are Benefitting from a Comprehensive ERCOT Forecast Package

Financial Traders can access additional trading instruments and realize more revenue from arbitrage opportunities:

• Short-Term Trading Instruments – Higher granularity RT forecasts provide visibility into price behavior after the Day-Ahead market closes, expanding the types of trades financial customers can execute, including bal-day trades, DA/RT spread trades ("convergence bids" and "virtuals"), and more.

Independent Power Producers (IPPs) can optimize operations and maximize revenue:

• DA/RT Arbitrage Opportunities – Both thermal and renewable IPPs can arbitrage the DA/RT spread to increase revenue. Additionally, dispatchable IPPs – including peaker plants and pumped hydro – can more effectively chase price peaks. RT forecasts help them optimize generation over short-term time horizons and capture high-price events.

Battery operators and optimizers can capitalize on critical high-price hours of the year:

• Enhanced Bidding Strategies – Operators can confidently inform battery bidding strategies based on upcoming real-time market conditions.

• DA/RT Arbitrage Opportunities – The combined DA and RT price forecast provides a comprehensive view of arbitrage opportunities to guide operational decisions.

Commercial & Industrials can manage operational costs more effectively:

• Load Shifting – Large consumers, such as data centers, can use RT price forecasts to shift load and avoid high-cost hours, resulting in significant cost savings.

During a price spike on April 2^nd 2025, caused by a combination of solar ramping down with less than expected wind generation, our Real-Time Price Forecast was able to predict the peak. As we head into the summer, in which we will see more volatility, an accurate RT Price Forecast is more important than ever.  

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Connect with an Amperon team member to evaluate backtests and trial our ERCOT solution today.

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