The Midwest region continues to see significant growth in clean/green energy resources based on state mandates, economics and customer carbon reduction goals. This growth in wind and solar resources are providing new energy on the system, but the energy output is weather dependent. At the same time, evolving environmental regulations and economics are causing an increasing number of coal- and gas-fired resource retirements. Environmental restrictions and natural gas price volatility are making the future deployment of dispatchable natural gas-fired resources less certain while flexible energy storage resources have not yet emerged in significant quantities to retain the historic operational flexibility of the system. These factors, among others, are causing concerns about potential economic impacts on customers as well as maintaining reliability during the transition to the grid of the future.