NYISO BLOG

Brad Jones, former NYISO President and CEO, passed away on Wednesday, November 8.

In this episode of our Power Trends podcast, Julie Tighe discusses her role leading the New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV), and her recent addition to the NYISO’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC). The EAC, which was formed in 2005, provides information and analysis on state and federal environmental policies relative to NYISO’s mission of grid reliability.

The following op-ed was originally published in Crain’s New York Business on October 30, 2023.

Interconnecting new generation and transmission projects at the scale necessary to meet the goals set forth in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is a challenging task. According to our 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook, at least 111 gigawatts of renewable resources will need to be online by 2040. That’s three times larger than the 37.4 gigawatts in generating capacity that exists on the grid today. Additionally, more transmission will be required to move that energy from areas of generation to load pockets. To meet these challenges, we are taking several steps to improve the interconnection process.

State and federal policies promoting renewable energy and decarbonization of the grid are driving historic investments in the electric system. Here in New York, a record number of new wind, solar, and battery storage facilities are seeking to connect to the electric grid.

The New York ISO (Independent System Operator) has a variety of roles as manager of the electric grid in the state. One of them is overseeing the markets that allow for the trading of wholesale power. And when energy market participants have a question, as the expression goes, “Who you gonna call?”

We know the electric system is essential to the state’s economy and provides for the health and safety of all New Yorkers. We also know that delivering a cleaner, greener grid of the future is just as important. State climate policies to address extreme weather require a decarbonized electric system by 2040. Reaching that mandate while keeping the system reliable is at the heart of all that we do.

New York’s recent peak day for electricity consumption came during a heatwave, as millions of people relied on their air conditioners to keep cool. That’s not unusual. However, some of the circumstances leading up to that day still provided a challenge.  

Reaching a 100% emission-free grid by 2040 is an ambitious goal; the challenge of our lifetime.

When the NYISO was first created more than twenty years ago to run the power grid and wholesale electric markets for New York, it was structured as an independent entity serving under a transparent, shared governance platform approved and overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). An independent approach, it was believed, would best serve the interests of consumers and system reliability while also preventing any one entity or industry from unduly influencing operation of the system or market outcomes.

On August 14, 2003, a transmission line fault in Ohio caused by contact with a tree cascaded into what would become one of the largest outages in North American history plunging more than 50 million people in eight states and Ontario into darkness.

In our latest podcast, we sat down with Rana Mukerji, NYISO’s SVP of Market Structures, to learn about his journey from growing up in Calcutta, India to becoming widely regarded as one of the ­­industry's leading designers of electricity markets. We ask Rana about his past career experience working for General Electric and ABB, and how the markets must evolve to accommodate a new set of renewable resources while keeping the grid reliable.

On July 14, 2023, the New York ISO issued its Short-Term Assessment of Reliability for the second quarter of 2023 (Q2 STAR). The Q2 STAR assessed conditions on the bulk electric system in New York over a five-year study period of April 15, 2023, through April 15, 2028, considering forecasts of peak power demand, planned upgrades to the transmission system, and changes to the generation mix over the next five years.

For some time now, the NYISO has been reporting on declining reliability margins on New York’s grid, noting that New York City, in particular, is at increased risk of outages as soon as 2025. On July 14, 2023, we published the findings from our second quarter 2023 Short-Term Assessment of Reliability (STAR) report. We found that through updates to our analysis margins in New York City disappear altogether in summer 2025. This required us to declare a “reliability need” in order to avoid outages and disruptions to New Yorkers’ power supply. But, how does the NYISO identify these types of concerns?

New York State has embarked on an ambitious journey towards a zero-emissions power grid by 2040. The timeframe seems so distant and the goal so overwhelming that it’s hard to know sometimes if we’re making progress. While plenty of work remains to decarbonize the grid, in some ways many of the small steps the state has already taken are contributing to significant changes in how the grid is supplied.

Maintaining a reliable energy system requires that enough power generating capacity is installed system-wide to meet projected electricity demand and reliability requirements.

In our previous blog post that looked at the NYISO’s Public Policy Transmission Planning Process, we mentioned three transmission projects that will help deliver clean energy to the grid of the future. In this post, we'll take a closer look at the Empire State Line and the AC Transmission Projects.

As public policies continue to shape the grid of the future, the need to invest in the transmission system has never been greater. The good news is that a historic level of investment is underway, with projects recently completed or under construction that will deliver more clean energy to consumers while enhancing grid reliability. However, to meet decarbonization goals, even more investment will be necessary as discussed in the NYISO’s System and Resource Outlook, a 2022 study that looked at potential resource development over the next 20 years.

The NYISO’s wholesale markets are designed to choose the most cost-efficient mix of energy to meet consumer demand and maintain reliability of the electric system. As summarized in our recent blog The Capacity Market's Role in Grid Reliability: Frequently Asked Questions, the NYISO capacity market is the means by which utilities and other electricity providers purchase sufficient supply to meet expected peak demand and reliability requirements.

At the NYISO, keeping the electric grid reliable will always be job one, managing the flow of electricity around the clock, every day of the year.