Energy Insights | Energy Exemplar

OPC Energy Transforms Energy Modeling with PLEXOS® Intelligence

Written by Victoria Taylor | August 25, 2026

OPC Energy is a global energy company with operations spanning Israel and the US. As an independent power producer, OPC owns and operates natural gas generation assets alongside a growing renewables portfolio and holds a supply license serving commercial, industrial, and residential customers through power purchase agreements.

As one of the earliest adopters of PLEXOS® Intelligence, OPC quickly discovered that AI could fundamentally change how analysts interact with simulation results.

PLEXOS® Intelligence is the energy decision platform, with AI built into every step of the modeling workflow. OPC’s analysts use it to put specialized AI agents to work on their simulation output, helping them explore results, validate assumptions, build dashboards, and answer complex modeling questions. More than a conversational agent, it acts as a PLEXOS® expert. Users can tailor it with their own knowledge of their models, assumptions, and markets, creating AI agents that understand the context behind their work. Agents and dashboards can be shared across the organization, so executives and planners can ask their own questions directly.

Unlike traditional business intelligence tools, which require analysts to know where data lives, how model outputs are structured, and how to build queries, PLEXOS® Intelligence removes that barrier. Analysts simply ask questions in plain language while every answer remains grounded in the underlying PLEXOS® simulation.

Instead of asking, "How do I dig through all of this output?" analysts can focus on "What do I actually want to know?"

From there, PLEXOS® Intelligence gets to work, investigating model results, comparing scenarios, identifying the drivers behind outcomes, and answering follow-up questions. As valuable insights emerge, they can be captured as interactive dashboards that evolve alongside the analysis rather than static reports that need to be rebuilt. The result is a faster path from simulation to insight.

 

Making Sense of Growing Model Complexity 

The Trading and Economic Department plays a critical role in helping OPC Energy make informed decisions about generation planning, dispatch strategies, budgeting, and commercial opportunities. Using PLEXOS®, the team evaluates a wide range of market conditions and operational scenarios to understand how changing assumptions could affect the business.

As OPC's modeling capabilities expanded, so did the scale and complexity of the analysis.

A single study can produce thousands of variables across multiple scenarios. Before meaningful analysis could begin, analysts often had to navigate large datasets, export results into other tools, compare scenarios manually, and assemble reports for different stakeholders.

The challenge wasn't producing accurate models.

It was turning increasingly complex outputs into timely, actionable insights that decision-makers could trust.

Changing the Modeling Workflow

PLEXOS® Intelligence transformed how OPC's analysts interact with their PLEXOS® models and, more importantly, the questions they ask of them.

Analysts ask plain-language questions about their results, and PLEXOS® Intelligence investigates the model, compares scenarios, identifies the key drivers behind outcomes, and returns summaries, visualizations, and recommendations quickly.

As valuable answers emerge, analysts save them as reusable dashboards that continue evolving alongside the analysis. Rather than recreating reports for every new study, they build living workspaces that allow the team to revisit findings, explore additional questions, and share insights as projects progress.

The workflow itself has fundamentally changed.

OPC energy analysts now spend less time preparing data and more time validating assumptions, testing scenarios, and understanding why results changed. During stakeholder meetings, dashboards can be explored live, allowing new questions to be answered immediately instead of requiring additional analysis after the meeting.

According to Shay Perets, VP of Economic and Trade at OPC Energy, the impact was immediate.

"It's shortened dramatically the period for the analyst to create a dashboard based on management's needs or requirements. PLEXOS® Intelligence is a very fast tool."

Turning Insights into Real Business Results   

The value of that new workflow became especially clear during a recent tender issued by the Israeli Electricity Authority.

OPC Energy had only a limited amount of time to update its existing PLEXOS® model with new regulatory requirements, validate the results, and prepare its submission.

After implementing the new market rules in the model, analysts noticed unexpected behavior in part of the simulation output. Rather than manually reviewing thousands of model results to isolate the issue, they turned to PLEXOS® Intelligence.

By asking targeted questions about the simulation outputs, the team quickly traced the anomaly to a single manual configuration error. Once corrected, the model produced the expected results, allowing the team to move forward with confidence while avoiding hours of manual investigation.

Following the submission, OPC Energy was the leading awardee in the tender conducted by the Israeli Electricity Authority. While that success reflected the strength of the company's overall modeling expertise and commercial strategy, the experience demonstrated how PLEXOS® Intelligence helped the team validate results more quickly, identify issues earlier, and work effectively under significant time pressure.

More Time for Strategic Decisions  

For OPC Energy, the greatest benefit isn't simply completing analysis faster.

It's fundamentally changing where analysts spend their time.

Instead of preparing data and assembling reports, they can focus on testing assumptions, evaluating market scenarios, identifying commercial opportunities, and helping the business make better decisions.

As Gilad Shalom, Economist at OPC Energy, explains:

"PLEXOS® Intelligence has become a valuable productivity tool. It streamlines the workflow from running a model to reviewing outcomes, validating assumptions, and comparing scenarios. Tasks that previously required manual effort can now be completed in a short amount of time, while maintaining confidence in the analysis."

For OPC Energy, PLEXOS® Intelligence has become part of the everyday modeling work, enabling analysts to move directly from simulation to trusted insight while empowering decision-makers to ask better questions, explore answers faster, and make decisions with greater confidence.