Power markets are moving fast. Rising renewable penetration is driving intraday price volatility across US ISOs, and hourly power futures are emerging as a practical short-term risk management response.
We spoke with Sam Tegel, CEO of ElectronX, to get his perspective on what gap the market was missing, how demand for hourly power futures has evolved since launch, and what the rise of short-term power trading means for how energy firms manage risk.
What gap in the market did ElectronX address, and how has demand evolved since launch?
ElectronX has several unique market structure attributes that it brings to U.S. power trading. First, our CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse operates with a direct-access model, allowing participants to connect directly to our platform without a broker or FCM. Practically speaking, that means lower capital minimums than required with intermediated relationships. Second, our fully collateralized contracts, traded with no margin, translate to simpler risk management and accounting requirements for participant firms. Third, ElectronX’s hourly product suites are the first purpose-built contracts for intraday power risk management in the U.S. market, with small sizes designed for granular hedging strategies. Finally, our trading platform has been developed by quantitative trading veterans to support the modern efficiencies and algorithmic strategies required of today’s most discerning energy market participants.
ElectronX soft-launched in Dec. 2025 with select contracts for the ERCOT market, and we listed our full ERCOT suite in early February 2026. As a new market starting from zero, with an entirely new suite of products for power traders, we’ve been very pleased with the traction building over the last few months. We launched our second product suite for PJM Interconnection in early April, when we observed 10x exchange volume growth over March.
We also recorded three new daily volume records in April, and heading into the volatile summer months we expect participation and trading activity to continue building.
What has driven adoption of hourly power futures among trading firms?
Adding renewable energy generation to the U.S. grid has also introduced intraday supply intermittency, for example, at night when solar power isn’t available, or during weather events when wind power can’t be generated. At the same time, industrial batteries are being integrated to many grids at a rapid pace, transforming how electricity can be stored and later deployed in times of decreased generation. Over the past several years, these dynamics have resulted in reliable intraday patterns of price volatility, but legacy U.S. power derivatives have not evolved to accurately and simply capture these risk shapes.
It was clear to us that persistent intraday volatility signals regular uncertainty in power prices, with observable extreme swings during times of grid stress. In fact, U.S. power as a commodity class is severely underhedged when compared to other mature commodities markets. Energy traders today want better price discovery and hedging tools to match the risk they are managing on a daily basis. We’ve had great feedback from the power trading community and our early adopters who see how our market structure and products are tailored to a specific risk profile in their existing portfolios.
How do you see the role of short-term power markets evolving?
Ultimately, we want to grow power hedging overall, and how short-term markets integrate with existing longer-dated risk management strategies depends somewhat on each grid operator and its peculiarities. ISOs like ERCOT with a large percentage of renewables and batteries, coupled with extreme weather, present different risk profiles than those in much of PJM, where batteries are just beginning to influence the grid – but in PJM, the pressure of data center development on collective pricing and physical power supply is acute.
Big picture: We see more short-term power trading as an integral and growing part of the energy management stack. Many firms are working on innovative new short-term weather intelligence and grid forecasting, we view ElectronX as the market to monetize that intelligence. As the power market grows and decentralizes, market-based solutions will enable real efficiency gains in physical procurement and power usage. A key part of our thesis is bringing new, sophisticated liquidity to the power ecosystem, which has helped to modernize other asset classes like equities, fixed income, and FX in the last 20 years.
What are the biggest operational differences between trading hourly power products versus longer-dated contracts, from a risk and compliance perspective?
We operate as a fully regulated CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), and we believe that regulatory clarity meaningfully simplifies the risk and compliance aspects of moving financial risk in the short-term markets.
On the risk side, all risk is bounded and fully collateralized at ElectronX. More importantly, risk is focused on only the size and hours you care about. This precision adds additional certainty to short-term strategic modeling that was previously unavailable to the power hedging market. Further, central clearing meaningfully simplifies participants’ ability to face liquidity from a wide range of counterparties.
On the compliance side, all trading at ElectronX is subject to the same compliance and regulatory oversight that is required of other U.S. regulated derivatives markets. We are subject to and abide by all CFTC operational requirements including KYC, market surveillance and customer fund protection rules.
How does ElectronX plan to develop its intraday power trading market in the coming months and years?
Building liquidity in a new regulated derivatives exchange takes persistence, innovation and patience, even when tackling an immediate problem like electricity volatility is today. We are fortunate to be supported by premier investors in three key areas who all see the potential in making the exchange a success: first, technology venture capital firms including Innovation Endeavors, DCVC, Systemiq Capital, and NGP; second, global energy conglomerates including the venture arms of Shell and Equinor; and finally, quantitative trading firms including XTX Markets, Five Rings, and GTS. Not only does this unique coalition bring strategic strength, it also underscores the belief that a successful intraday power market can benefit the entire U.S. power economy.
In 2026, we plan to continue listing additional product suites for the remaining tradeable U.S. grid operators to round out our national footprint, and build liquidity through continuing to onboard a variety of participant types with varying hedging needs. Expanding exchange access through intermediation is also a top priority, requiring regulatory approvals already in the works. The upcoming summer season will no doubt bring the extreme volatility our market was built for, and we welcome the feedback we’ll receive from our participants during those conditions.
Refining the platform user experience in close dialogue with our exchange members is key to our success. We want to solve real problems in energy markets, one participant at a time.
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