ERCOT Storage Performance | January 2026

January was RTC+B’s first full month of operations, and for most of it, the market was quiet. Then the storm hit.

Winter Storm Fern hit Texas January 24th–26th, and the 25th and 26th rewrote what had been shaping up as a low revenue opportunity month. For the operators who captured those days, it wasn’t a strong finish to a decent January. It was the whole thing.

That concentration of revenue tells a story about what ERCOT rewards right now, and who was positioned to receive it.

Revenue bounced back hard from December — 2.5x higher for the median asset and 7.5x higher for the top earner. Nearly all of that revenue was concentrated in two days. The top earner made 98% of its January revenue during the peak Winter Storm Fern days.

• Highest earning asset made $22.46/kW, while the top 50 revenue generators averaged $6.55/kW
• Median asset brought in $3.23/kW, with the fleet average higher at $3.50/kW
• Real-Time (RT) Energy made up the majority of revenue at 43%, with Day-Ahead Ancillary Services (DA AS) trailing behind at 38%

The revenue recovery didn’t tell the whole story though. DA TB2 capture actually fell, with the median asset capturing 10% less than in December. The fleet is still adapting to what good day-ahead positioning looks like post-RTC+B, and January didn’t change that trajectory.

What it did reveal was a divide in how operators approached the storm. The top earners had conviction going into those two days, taking large positions in the Day-Ahead Market (DAM). For those who held back, the RT opportunity they were anticipating never matched what was already priced into the DAM.

• Top performing asset captured 145% of its DA TB2 opportunity, and the top 50 averaged 72%
• Median asset captured 34%, with the fleet average slightly higher at 39%

Duration played its expected role in shaping how assets earned in January, with short duration assets anchoring in DA AS and long duration assets leaning into RT Energy. But within each bucket, the top performers were making choices that the rest of the fleet wasn’t.

Breakdown by asset duration:

• Short duration assets (≤1.0 hours) drew 59% of their revenue from DA AS in January, but the top 10 within that group pushed that figure to 70%. The DA AS premium was there for everyone throughout January. The difference was how hard the top performers were willing to commit to it.
• Mid-duration assets (1.1–1.6 hours) showed the most balanced revenue mix of any group, with RT Energy, DA Energy, and DA AS all playing a meaningful role. The top 10 within the mid-duration assets followed the same pattern as their short-duration peers, leaning harder into DA AS than the rest of the group.
• Long duration assets (>1.6 hours) leaned heavily into RT Energy, which made up 52% of their revenue. But zoom into the top 10 and the picture changes as RT Energy’s share shrinks, and DA Energy takes a significant jump. Long duration gave those operators something shorter assets didn’t have – enough SOC to take a strong DA position and keep RT optionality alive at the same time.

Winter Storm Fern brought cold temperatures and icy conditions to Texas January 24th–26th. ERCOT issued a Weather Watch and was forecasting record-breaking load, expected to peak the morning of January 26th. The setup looked like a classic scarcity event — high load, a stressed grid, RT prices potentially running to the cap.

It didn’t play out that way. Load came in 8–10GW below forecast. Wind overproduced by 2–3GW overnight. The RT spikes most of the fleet was positioned for never arrived at scale — and the operators who had bet on DA were the ones who came out ahead.

We break down exactly how the storm unfolded, what the fleet did, and what strong bidding approaches looked like in our Winter Storm Fern deep dive.

*Top earners defined as highest $/kW
**Top performers defined as highest percent of DA TB2 captured