RTO Insider LLC, which has been covering the U.S.’ wholesale power markets since 2013, has agreed to be acquired by Yes Energy, which provides data, tools and analysis on the same markets.
“We are thrilled about this merger and the opportunities it presents for our customers, employees and stakeholders,” said Michael McNair, CEO of Yes Energy. “Yes Energy and RTO Insider share a passion to serve complex power markets and a commitment to excellence. We will provide the deepest coverage of RTO market data, rules, regulations and policies in the industry.”
Rich Heidorn Jr., editor-in-chief and publisher of RTO Insider, said the site’s news coverage will be enhanced by incorporating real-time and historic power market data and deeper analysis from Yes Energy. RTO Insider will continue to be available as a separate subscription and will maintain its commitment to unbiased coverage.
Heidorn will continue to oversee RTO Insider and will lead its integration with Yes Energy. Ken Sands, senior vice president editorial, and Adam Schaffer, senior vice president sales and marketing, will continue running RTO Insider’s daily operations. All RTO Insider customer plans and contacts will remain the same.
Yes Energy employs more than 300 energy analysts, database architects, application developers and economists at nine offices in the U.S., Japan, the U.K., Romania and New Zealand, including its headquarters in Boulder, Colo.
Its eight products provide ISO/RTO data, locational marginal prices, FTR auction results, transmission and generation outages, real-time generation and flow data, and load and weather forecasts. Its customers include traders, analysts, asset managers, asset developers and risk managers.
The company was founded by McNair in 2008 to help power market participants optimize their daily trading and hedging operations.
RTO Insider is the fifth acquisition Yes Energy has made since 2022, when it obtained financial backing from Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm.
McNair announced the acquisition to more than 300 Yes Energy customers March 5 at EMPOWER 25, its annual summit, in Denver. He said acquiring RTO Insider was another step toward completing Yes Energy’s “Power Market Operating System.”
RTO Insider brings Yes Energy “a new kind of product platform through which we can deliver the news on policy, but also cover market news, events on the grid and provide in-depth analysis of physical changes to the grid,” McNair said. “You’ll see there are a lot of boxes being ticked here where RTO can benefit from or contribute to our operating system.”
Heidorn shared his vision for what he called “the second chapter” of RTO Insider at the conference.
“What really excites me about joining Yes Energy — aside from getting to work with Michael and his terrific team — is that we will have access to FTR market results, real-time transmission flows, modeling results from long-term studies and other information that will allow us to expand our coverage,” he said.
Heidorn founded RTO Insider with his wife, Merry Eisner-Heidorn, who died in May 2024.
The idea behind RTO Insider was to help stakeholders monitor rule changes that matter to them and alert them to when they should begin attending the meetings themselves to advocate for their interests.
Other publications only cover FERC’s ultimate decisions, what Heidorn likened to the small part of an iceberg that is above water. “That means that if you are not in those stakeholder meetings, you’re like the captain of the Titanic, with no visibility of that iceberg until it’s too late to change course,” he said.
RTO Insider remains the only news source with reporters covering RTO/ISO meetings in person.
In addition to its flagship product, RTO Insider, the company publishes ERO Insider, which covers the Electric Reliability Organization (NERC and its regional entities) and NetZero Insider, which covers state and federal climate policy.