NYISO BLOG

Growing up in Hefei, China, Wenjin Yan often watched her father, an electrical engineer, rush out the door to address a problem on the power grid.

The AC Transmission Projects, completed in 2023, have improved energy deliverability in so-called “wind pockets,” parts of New York where more renewable energy is produced than can be delivered to consumers.

Brandon Cheely loves figuring how to optimize performance – whether it’s the software that runs electricity markets or the team he manages at the NYISO.

In the NYISO’s wholesale markets, the cost of a megawatt hour (MWh) of energy can be understood as a combination of two parts: the energy price and the capacity price. One megawatt can power 800-1,000 homes.

Our mission at the NYISO is to ensure power system reliability and competitive markets for New York in a clean-energy future, and to work with all stakeholders to build the cleanest, most reliable electric system in the nation.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has made significant improvements and enhancements to the interconnection process, crucial for integrating a high volume of new generation facilities onto the grid.

There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of new generation projects seeking to connect to the bulk power system since the passage of the CLCPA in 2019. As the grid evolves, careful coordination and thorough analysis is required to safely and reliably connect new resources to the system.

One of the things that distinguishes the NYISO is our culture of giving. Serving New Yorkers with reliable power is part of our mission, but going beyond that is something HR Manager Sarah Knox knows a lot about.

When we talk about building a more sustainable future, the journey is as important as the destination. Steering the electric grid through these monumental changes requires leadership and creativity.

Participants and other stakeholders in NYISO-administered wholesale electricity markets count on experts like Mathangi Srinivasan for training. Whether they attend course offerings as a refresher, or are starting with basics, Mathangi finds her role as a Market Training Program Lead to be very fulfilling.

Our operators who oversee New York’s power grid are like “a lifeguard on the ocean,” says Jon Sawyer, Director of Grid Operations at the NYISO. “You're monitoring, you're tracking, but when an emergency happens ‘right now’ you've got to go do something.”

“For the past few years an overwhelming number of clean energy requests have rushed into our interconnection queue with a process that was not originally designed for this large volume of requests,” says Manager of Facilities Study, Wenjin Yan. The interconnection queue is an important piece in helping meet the state’s policy goals. In this new video series, we highlight the efforts underway to improve and expedite the connection of more renewable energy to the grid.

(PictureL-R: Cheryl L. Hussey, Vice President & CFO; Tara Lefevre, Senior Manager, Control Room Operations; Deneen Byrne, Vice President of Human Resources; Emilie Nelson, Executive Vice President & COO; Yachi Lin, Director, System Planning; Karen G. Gach, Deputy General Counsel; Juliann Madara, Director of Internal Audit) From an engineering perspective, the electric system in New York has until recently looked largely as it did in 1882 when Thomas Edison launched the world’s first cogeneration plant in lower Manhattan.

As we recently highlighted, there was a tremendous amount of interest about the impacts of the 2024 solar eclipse on solar generation and the bulk power system here in New York.

What does the path to a decarbonized grid by 2040 look like? Dr. C. Lindsay Anderson of Cornell University is working to answer the question of where best on the grid to incorporate large amounts of new generation on the future grid to achieve optimal performance.

The System and Resource Planning Department at the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) recently completed our 2023-2032 Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP), which analyzes the electric system on a ten year time horizon for reliability risks and investment needs to keep the electric system reliable.

As millions of New Yorkers are treated to a view of a total solar eclipse, we at the NYISO will be monitoring its impacts and managing the power grid, which is incorporating more clean energy resources than ever.

Markets are the most powerful means to drive needed energy infrastructure investment in support of reliability. While state incentives attract investment in clean energy generation, markets will continue to be needed to attract the capabilities necessary to balance the system, including flexibility and responsiveness to balance the availability of wind and solar to ensure that the greener grid is also a reliable grid.

A great deal of attention is being paid to the important process of connecting new generation like wind, solar, and energy storage to the electric grid. And for good reason: large investments in emissions-free resources are necessary to meet the state's climate goals and new resources are necessary to help make up for retiring fossil-based generators.

For the past two decades, demand for electricity in New York grew modestly as energy efficiency programs and new products like LED lighting counterbalanced an increase in demand from smart phones, digital TVs, and computers.