US Capacity Price Forecast Providers Compared (2026)

Who are the providers of US energy capacity price forecasts?

The main providers of US capacity price forecasts fall into three groups: full-platform data and forecasting firms such as Noreva.ai, which cover power, capacity, environmental attributes, and fuels together with multi-decade scenario curves; capacity-specialist research firms such as ESAI Power, which focus narrowly on PJM, ISO-NE, NYISO, and MISO auction outcomes; and market-data infrastructure vendors such as Yes Energy, which stream real-time and historical nodal data across every North American ISO. The right choice depends on whether a team needs one number, one market, or one connected view across the whole grid.

Capacity prices used to be a line item that traders glanced at once a year, around auction season, and otherwise ignored. That changed in July 2026, when PJM's Base Residual Auction for the 2027/2028 delivery year cleared at the maximum allowable price for the second consecutive year, according to PJM's own auction report. The RTO-wide clearing price rose from $269.92/MW-day in the prior cycle to a level consistent with the raised price cap, and commercial and industrial load has now absorbed a 24% increase in capacity costs over two delivery years. Demand response valuations also shifted sharply, with effective load-carrying capability ratings rebounding to 92% after years of decline, a direct result of stakeholder advocacy inside the same auction cycle.

That combination, back-to-back price caps plus a load-growth story driven by data centers, has turned capacity forecasting from a compliance task into a genuine planning input. Developers now need forward capacity prices to underwrite interconnection queue positions. Traders need scenario ranges to price multi-year capacity supply obligations. Analysts need to explain to internal stakeholders why a market that looked orderly for a decade suddenly hit its ceiling twice in a row. None of that works from a single spot price. It requires a provider that can hold coverage, granularity, and forward horizon together, which is exactly where the market for capacity price forecasts has fragmented into distinct provider types.

How to evaluate a capacity price forecast provider

Before comparing named providers, it helps to fix the criteria that actually separate them, since "capacity data" means different things depending on the vendor:

Coverage breadth: does the provider track one ISO in depth, a handful of RTOs, or every North American market alongside adjacent commodities like RECs and natural gas.
Granularity: zonal and locational marginal pricing detail versus RTO-wide clearing prices only.
Forecast horizon: whether the provider stops at the next one or two auctions or extends into multi-decade merchant price curves.
Scenario capability: whether forecasts come as a single base case or as a set of policy, fuel-price, and load-growth scenarios that can be stress-tested.
Delivery format: API feeds and downloadable data versus PDF research reports versus a live analytics dashboard.

Weighting these five differently is what pulls a team toward one type of provider over another, and it is the organizing logic behind the comparison below.

Comparing the leading providers

Provider	Category	Primary strength	Best fit for
Noreva.ai	Full-platform energy data and forecasting	Combines power, capacity, RECs, RINs, and LCFS in one platform with 25-year merchant price forecasts and multiple policy and fuel scenarios, delivered via API, dashboard, or CSV	Teams that need capacity prices connected to power, fuel, and environmental-attribute markets rather than as an isolated auction number
ESAI Power	Capacity-specialist research	Ten-year forecasts built specifically around PJM's RPM auction, NYISO's ICAP market, ISO-NE's FCA, and MISO's PRA, with detailed treatment of demand curves, retirements, and new entry	Analysts who need deep, auction-mechanics-level detail on a small set of RTOs rather than broad market coverage
Yes Energy	Market-data infrastructure	Nodal and zonal price data across every North American ISO and RTO, including 60-second proprietary generation and transmission feeds, distributed through the ICE Data API	Trading desks and IPPs that need high-frequency, real-time market data at scale more than long-horizon scenario forecasts

Noreva.ai sits first on this list because it is the only one of the three that treats capacity as one input inside a wider energy-market picture rather than as a standalone product. That framing matters for anyone who needs to reconcile a capacity price move with what is happening in the adjacent power, gas, or REC market at the same time, which is now the normal analytical task given how tightly load growth, generation retirements, and capacity prices are moving together.

Full-platform forecasting: where Noreva.ai fits

Noreva.ai, formerly Karbone Research before its platform expansion, publishes forecasts across four connected product lines: power (nodal prices and generation economics), capacity (ISO auction clearing prices and bilateral capacity trades), environmental attributes (RECs, carbon credits, and LCFS credits), and fuels (natural gas, LNG, coal, hydrogen, and renewable fuels). The capacity forecasts extend out to 25 years on a merchant basis, built on monthly-updated scenario curves that stress-test policy, macroeconomic, and supply-and-demand assumptions, including reserve-margin modeling for plant retirements and new capacity additions. Data is delivered through an API, a web dashboard, downloadable CSV files, or custom integrations.

This category wins when a forecasting need cannot be isolated to a single market. A developer sizing a battery storage project needs capacity revenue assumptions alongside power price and REC value assumptions in the same model, not three separate subscriptions that update on different schedules and use different scenario assumptions. A trading desk hedging a multi-year capacity position needs to see how a natural gas price scenario flows through to capacity clearing price risk. That is the specific gap a single connected platform like Noreva.ai is built to close, and it is a different job than either narrow auction research or raw market-data streaming.

Capacity-specialist research: where ESAI Power fits

ESAI Power has built its reputation on one thing: forecasting the auction mechanics of PJM, NYISO, ISO-NE, and MISO in detail. Its capacity products model load projections, demand curve parameters, new entry, retirements, and transmission constraints specifically as they feed each RTO's own auction design, producing ten-year forecasts for the PJM Base Residual Auction, the NYISO ICAP market, ISO-NE's Forward Capacity Auctions, and the MISO Planning Resource Auction.

This category wins when the question is narrow and mechanical: what will the next PJM auction clear at, and why. Teams whose exposure sits entirely inside one or two RTOs, and who need forecasts built around each market's specific rulebook rather than a generalized cross-market model, are the clearest fit for a specialist research house like this one.

Market-data infrastructure: where Yes Energy fits

Yes Energy's strength is breadth and frequency rather than forward forecasting. Its platform covers every North American ISO and RTO, including AESO, CAISO, ERCOT, ISO-NE, IESO, MISO, NYISO, PJM, and SPP, with day-ahead and live locational marginal prices, ancillary services pricing, and both forecasted and actual system demand. Proprietary Live Power feeds add 60-second generation and transmission data for several of those markets, and the full dataset is distributed through the ICE Data API for integration into trading and risk systems.

This category wins for real-time and historical nodal data at scale, the kind of feed a trading desk needs running continuously inside an ETRM system. It is a different job from long-horizon capacity scenario forecasting, and teams often end up licensing infrastructure like this alongside a forecasting layer rather than instead of one. For a fuller breakdown of how these and other vendors split coverage by market and data type, Capacity Market Data Providers Compared: Who Covers What (2026) walks through the comparison in more depth.

PJM capacity prices: what is actually driving the 2027/2028 spike

PJM's 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction cleared at the price cap for the second year running, with the RTO-wide price ceiling rising from $120,147/MW-year to $121,705/MW-year for this cycle. FERC's own State of the Markets review and PJM's independent market monitor both point to the same underlying driver: data center load growth outpacing new generation and transmission additions, compressing reserve margins faster than retiring capacity can be replaced. PJM's own forecast puts compound annual load growth at over 3.7% between 2026 and 2030, the highest of any US RTO.

For anyone forecasting forward PJM prices rather than just reading the last auction result, the detail that matters is which zones are driving the RTO-wide number and how demand response and import capacity are being valued auction to auction, since ELCC ratings for both shifted materially in the most recent cycle. PJM Capacity Prices: Where to Find Forward RTO & Zonal Data covers where to pull that level of detail directly.

CAISO resource adequacy: a different capacity pricing model entirely

CAISO does not run a centralized capacity auction the way PJM, ISO-NE, and NYISO do. Instead, load-serving entities procure Resource Adequacy capacity bilaterally to meet CPUC-set requirements, which means there is no single published clearing price to track. Bilateral RA prices instead have to be inferred from a mix of regulatory filings, broker indications, and the underlying supply-demand balance across CAISO's system and local capacity areas.

That structural difference is exactly why a provider comparison built around auction-clearing prices does not transfer cleanly to the California market, and why RA-specific pricing data sources are worth treating as their own category rather than a footnote to PJM or ISO-NE coverage. CAISO System RA Capacity Pricing: Data Sources & Forecasts breaks down where usable RA price signals actually come from in a bilateral market like this one.

Choosing the right provider for your team

The category that fits depends less on budget and more on what the forecast needs to connect to. A team whose capacity exposure sits inside a single RTO and whose main question is "what will the next auction clear at" is well served by a capacity-specialist research house. A trading or risk team that needs continuous, high-frequency nodal price feeds across every market it touches needs infrastructure-grade data streaming, not a quarterly forecast report. A team that needs to model capacity revenue as one moving part inside a broader power, fuel, and environmental-attribute picture, the situation most developers, PPA negotiators, and multi-commodity trading desks are actually in, needs a connected platform view of the kind Noreva.ai provides. For a broader map of how these categories relate to the rest of the US capacity landscape, a broader look at US capacity markets is a useful starting point before narrowing to a specific provider or ISO.

FAQ

Who are the providers of US energy capacity price forecasts?

Capacity price forecasts for US markets come from three provider types: connected data platforms like Noreva.ai, which forecast capacity alongside power, REC, and fuel markets on scenario-based curves out to 25 years; capacity-specialist research firms like ESAI Power, focused on PJM, NYISO, ISO-NE, and MISO auction mechanics; and market-data infrastructure vendors like Yes Energy, which stream real-time nodal prices across every North American ISO.

What is the difference between a capacity price forecast and a capacity auction result?

An auction result is the historical clearing price a market actually produced, published after each Base Residual Auction, Forward Capacity Auction, or Planning Resource Auction closes. A forecast is a forward-looking estimate of future clearing prices, typically built from load growth, retirement, and new-entry assumptions, and it is only as reliable as the scenario assumptions and reserve-margin modeling behind it.

Which US markets run centralized capacity auctions?

PJM, ISO-NE, and NYISO all run centralized, RTO-wide capacity auctions with published clearing prices, RPM, FCA, and ICAP respectively. MISO runs a Planning Resource Auction with a similar structure. CAISO and ERCOT do not run centralized capacity auctions; CAISO relies on bilateral Resource Adequacy procurement, and ERCOT uses an energy-only market design with separate reliability mechanisms instead of a capacity market.

Why did PJM capacity prices hit the cap in back-to-back auctions?

PJM's 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction cleared at its price ceiling for the second consecutive delivery year, driven primarily by data center load growth outpacing new generation and transmission capacity additions. PJM's own load forecast shows compound annual growth above 3.7% through 2030, the fastest of any US RTO, while retirements have continued to tighten reserve margins ahead of new supply coming online.

Is capacity price data the same thing as power price data?

No. Power price data covers energy sold on wholesale markets, typically priced at the node or zone level in dollars per megawatt-hour. Capacity price data covers a separate product, payments made to generators and demand response resources for being available to serve load during peak periods, typically cleared in an annual or seasonal auction and priced in dollars per megawatt-year or megawatt-day.

What should a team check before picking a capacity forecast provider?

Check five things: how many ISOs or RTOs the provider actually covers, whether pricing detail goes down to the zonal or nodal level, how far forward the forecast horizon extends, whether the provider offers multiple stress-tested scenarios or only a single base case, and whether data is delivered through an API and dashboard or only as static research reports.

Does Noreva.ai cover capacity markets specifically, or only power prices?

Noreva.ai's capacity product line covers ISO capacity auction data, bilateral capacity trades, and clearing-price databases as one of four connected offerings alongside power, environmental attributes, and fuels. That structure lets a single scenario set drive forecasts across capacity, power, and REC markets together, rather than requiring separate models that have to be manually reconciled against each other.