Energy is growing again.The playbook is not written yet.
Escend is a growth strategy firm for the energy transition. Utilities, solution providers and energy innovators bring us their hardest growth decisions; we bring market insight, regulatory fluency, deep relationships and a record of results.
Data centers are asking utilities for 100 MW to 1 GW at a time, and new generation and transmission cannot meet that timeline. At the same time, utility customers are more price sensitive than ever.
The challenge is not demand. It is that no single model works across markets that differ in regulation, resource mix and policies: what fits an Oregon IOU fails a Southeast co-op or a Canadian province.
Escend brings insight from those markets and working knowledge of the frameworks now being tested in them, from Community Benefit agreements to bring-your-own-distributed-capacity, drawn from the docket record we read every business day.
Escend Advisory
Growth decisions, market by market. Utilities, solution providers and the consultancies that serve them bring us the barrier; we bring the answer and stay to deliver it.
Explore the practice →Board Service
Independent judgment for boards facing decisions the playbook does not cover: financial oversight in a changing market, regulatory and commercial risk, and management's plan for growth. Vice Chair, PLMA. Board member, All In Energy.
Board profile →Four things moving in the market this month.
- Local moratoria are becoming the binding constraint. In one week, Statesville, NC approved a 180-day pause, Clarendon County, SC passed the final reading of its own, and Loudoun County, VA, the largest data center market in the world, took up a staff plan to pause new applications and end by-right status.
- Grid operators are writing large-load rules in parallel. Comment deadlines fall this month on MISO's interconnection reliability requirements for large loads, SPP's conditional high-impact large-load policy, and CAISO's draft large-load tariff, with PJM's large-load registry targeted for October.
- Bring-your-own-power is scaling. Saskatchewan approved up to 900 MW more for Bell's Regina campus under its Bring Your Own Power policy, toward a 1.2 GW hub, and Ottawa says it is exploring up to 6 GW of new capacity nationally.
- Cost allocation is now federal. The Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 9340, was scheduled for House floor consideration the week of September 15.
Escend tracks data center power and regulation across North America daily. Dates and figures as of September 15, 2026; sources on request.
Commercial outcomes, owned end to end.
Listen to the market
We work alongside your teams, customers, regulators and industry groups to surface the signals that matter, and we bring our own network of utility, developer and investor relationships to the table.
Translate signals into a roadmap
Energy, market and customer signals become a prioritized commercial plan with named owners, milestones and the metrics an executive team or board can hold it to.
Deliver measurable results
We stay through execution: positioning, pricing, partnerships, program launch and the negotiations where the value is decided.
Dain Nestel
Dain leads Escend's advisory practice. He previously served as Head of Growth and Commercialization at Portland General Electric, where he led data center negotiations, program development and the launch of the utility's transportation electrification and DER programs, and earlier built CLEAResult's demand response business line. He holds an Executive MBA from Kellogg School of Management and Sasin.