VIDEO: People Who Power New York: A Worldly Economist Finds a Home Designing Energy Markets in Albany, NY
A few interesting facts about Nicole Bouchez: she grew up in a small, hard-to-pronounce town in Holland. She spoke three languages before she was a teenager (and even more today). By the time she reached high school, she had discovered a love for economics. "It made sense," she said. "And it was mathematical. And interesting."
As our principal economist for market design, Bouchez delves deeply into the complexities of our competitive, wholesale energy markets. Yet she is able to explain simply how markets work and why they are beneficial for energy consumers: “We use the cheapest generators first and then we go up the stack until we have exactly the energy that we need. So we’re paying the least amount that we can,” she said.
Today, she is working with new market ideas to support the integration of renewables into our markets. Renewables, such as solar or wind, are less predictable than more traditional forms of generation such as combustion, hydro or nuclear. That’s because the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. “We’re evaluating how market rules may need to shift to accommodate those changes in generation,” she said. “So it’s a really exciting time.”
Listen to Nicole's story now.
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