Power Trends: New York ISO Podcast
32 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 11 ratingsThe Power Trends Podcast produced by the New York Independent System Operator where we discuss energy planning, public policy, and other issues affecting New York’s power grid.
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Episodes
Ep. 32: Modeling the Path to Decarbonization with Cornell’s Dr. C. Lindsay Anderson
April 10, 2024 19:00 - 25 minutes - 17.8 MBWhat 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. Anderson is chair of Cornell’s Department of Biological & Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on creating detailed models of energy systems to see how they’ll perform under different conditions. Her other research int...
Ep. 31: Columbia Climate School’s Daniel Zarrilli on New York’s Decarbonization Progress
February 27, 2024 21:00 - 28 minutes - 19.6 MBColumbia University’s Daniel Zarrilli knows a thing or two about New York City and the effects of climate change. For almost a decade prior to Hurricane Sandy, he worked on the city’s waterfront, managing maintenance and construction of the city’s piers and bulkheads, overseeing cruise terminals and other maritime assets, and working with coastal communities on a variety of local projects. That experience along the city’s 520-mile shoreline, plus his training as an engineer, put him in view...
Ep. 30: Nicole Bouchez, PhD, on her unique role as NYISO’s Consumer Interest Liaison
January 10, 2024 22:00 - 20 minutes - 14.2 MBYou might say Nicole Bouchez’s role as the NYISO’s Consumer Interest Liaison and Senior Principal Economist combines deep data analytics with good, old-fashioned customer service. She has an especially important responsibility evaluating the impacts of major market design changes for stakeholders, policymakers, and market participants. That’s where her PhD in International Economics comes in handy. But a large part of her job also includes working directly with some of the largest ener...
Ep. 29: Julie Tighe on Leading the NY League of Conservation Voters and Joining the NYISO’s Environmental Advisory Council
November 01, 2023 18:00 - 16 minutes - 11.6 MBIn this episode of our Power Trends podcast, Julie Tighe discusses her role leading the New York League of Conservation Voters, 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. “No one is going to be happy if the air conditioning goes out in a heat wave. So, we need to be strategic about that,” she said....
Ep.28: How NY's Grid Stayed Reliable Through This Summer's Late Heatwave with VP of Operations, Aaron Markham
October 02, 2023 01:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBNew 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. On our latest Power Trends podcast, NYISO’s Vice President of Operations Aaron Markham discusses what goes into maintaining a reliable grid during a late-season heatwave. The peak load on Sept. 6 was just over 30,200 megawatts. New York’s ...
Ep.27: Master Class in Electricity Markets with Rana Mukerji
August 01, 2023 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.8 MBIn 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. Wholesale competitive electricity markets are an ess...
Podcast Ep. 26: Running Down a Dream with Market Mitigation Economist Michelle Merlis
March 17, 2023 16:00 - 35 minutes - 24.4 MBEpisode 26 of the Power Trends podcast delivers a change of pace for our listeners. In this episode, NYISO market mitigation economist Michelle Merlis discusses her long and challenging path to becoming a world-class trail runner. While Michelle's early years found her on the basketball court, she discovered her passion for competitive running while earning a master’s degree in agricultural economics at Purdue University. After graduating from Purdue in 2012, she moved to the Capital Regi...
Ep. 25: VP Zach Smith on the Interconnection Process & Growth of Clean Energy on the Grid
February 23, 2023 01:00 - 31 minutes - 21.5 MB“The objective is the reliability of the grid,” VP of System & Resource Planning Zach Smith says about the process his group oversees studying the impacts of connecting new electric resources to the grid. Because of state policies and technological advancements, more developers are seeking to connect to the grid, creating more demands on the New York ISO in overseeing the study process. Smith is a frequent guest of the Power Trends podcast. His conversations on grid planning, reliability, a...
Podcast Ep. 24: U.S. Energy Information Administration Experts Discuss the Causes of Rising Winter Electricity Prices
January 05, 2023 18:00 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBIn our latest Power Trends Podcast, we interview two leading Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts about the impact of wholesale natural gas prices on winter electricity costs in New York. We spoke to Dr. Tyler Hodge, Senior Economist in the Office of Energy Analysis, and Corrina Ricker, a Certified Data Scientist on the Natural Gas Markets team, to dive into the findings of EIA’s latest Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO). Hodge said that he expects electricity prices in New York i...
Episode 23: NYISO’s Market Monitor – Guarding Competition for the Benefit of Consumers
November 21, 2022 19:00 - 18 minutes - 12.8 MBEvery five minutes, 24 hours a day, electricity in New York State is bought and sold through competitive wholesale electric markets administered by the NYISO. And while we may not think about electricity the same way we do about other products and services, competitive wholesale electric markets are truly dynamic, with hundreds of buyers and sellers, or “market participants,” involved in the process of meeting consumer demand for power at the least cost available. But how do we make sure t...
Episode 22: NYISO VP Zach Smith on Unprecedented Investment Needed to Meet Energy Goals
September 30, 2022 15:00 - 25 minutes - 17.6 MBThe NYISO recently released a new report that identifies the unprecedented level of electrical system investment necessary to achieve New York State’s climate policy requirements. Developed in collaboration with stakeholders and state agencies, the 2021-2040 System and Resource Outlook (the Outlook) uses various scenarios to identify potential pathways for transmission and supply investments that will support a reliable transition of the electric grid. In our latest Power Trends podcast, N...
Episode 21: U.S. Energy Information Administration Experts Discuss Recent Energy Price Impacts
August 08, 2022 15:00 - 18 minutes - 12.6 MBIn our latest Power Trends Podcast, we interviewed two leading U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts about domestic and international price trends and how world energy supply and demand are impacting wholesale electricity prices in New York. We spoke to Dr. Tyler Hodge, Senior Economist in the Office of Energy Analysis, and Corrina Ricker, a Certified Data Scientist on the Natural Gas Markets team, to dive into the findings of EIA’s latest Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO)....
Episode 20: The ROI of Energy Security Investment with Karen Wayland
June 15, 2022 18:00 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBIt’s going to take time and precision to build the grid of the future. Managing reliability carefully and investing in the right technologies as we transition to a grid increasingly based on clean energy will be key to success. These are the messages of Dr. Karen Wayland, a noted policy expert who focuses on the path to grid modernization and infrastructure improvements aimed at a cleaner, more efficient, more secure #gridofthefuture. Wayland is CEO of GridWise Alliance , an organization ma...
Episode 19: How We Removed Barriers to Clean-Energy Resources Coming Onto the Grid
February 28, 2022 16:00 - 20 minutes - 14.5 MBOur stakeholders recently approved changes to market rules which, if accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will help us meet New York’s zero-emissions mandates by supporting new investments in energy resources. The proposal was created to make it easier for clean-energy resources such as solar or wind to take part in the competitive, wholesale markets that serve the New York grid. The project was overwhelmingly supported by stakeholders, following months of discussion on how...
Episode 18: NYISO VP Zach Smith on Reliability Risks from Extreme Weather, Transmission Constraints, & Electricity Economics
December 27, 2021 14:00 - 31 minutes - 21.6 MBWe’ve just released a new report, the Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP), which looks at the New York energy grid over the next 10 years and determines if there are any factors that could impact our ability to keep the lights on for all. While the report declared there are no immediate risks, Vice President of System & Resource Planning Zach Smith says the future of the grid is not so simple. To safely and responsibly tackle climate change impacts to the power grid, one must consider mul...
Episode 17: Wes Yeomans on Summer Reliability Retrospective & Modeling for Climate Change
October 25, 2021 17:00 - 23 minutes - 16.3 MBWhen Wes Yeomans speaks, people in the energy industry listen. The Vice President of Operations, Wes has three decades of energy industry experience, including more than 10 years at the NYISO. In this podcast, he tells Kevin Lanahan, Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications, about how we performed in managing the electric grid last summer, our preparations for the winter ahead, and how we’re planning for a zero-emissions grid of the future. This summer saw extreme wea...
Episode 16: Gil C. Quiniones, President & CEO of NYPA, on Decarbonization, Building a Better Grid & Disaster Recovery
August 03, 2021 02:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBGil C. Quiniones, President & CEO of the New York Power Authority (NYPA), has transformed the organization and he has a lot to say about the grid of the future. The internationally-recognized leader in the power industry oversees a quarter of New York’s energy generation and a third of its transmission. The organization recently launched its 10-year, Vision2030 strategic plan, and is pushing with numerous other efforts to upgrade its facilities with the most cutting-edge technology to hel...
Episode 15: ACE NY’s Anne Reynolds Advises CAC on Fast-Tracking Clean Energy Targets
June 29, 2021 17:00 - 17 minutes - 11.9 MBAnne Reynolds joined the Alliance for Clean Energy (ACE NY) as executive director in 2014. But she has spent her career working on clean energy and environmental issues, including on numerous state programs to help ease the transition to emission-free resources in New York. She recently spoke with Kevin Lanahan, our vice president for external affairs and corporate communications, on our latest Power Trends Podcast. They discussed her role as a member of the state Climate Action Council (CA...
Episode 14: NYISO VP Zach Smith on Emission-Free Grid Planning, Climate Change & the Interconnection Queue
April 19, 2021 21:00 - 25 minutes - 17.5 MBIt’s Zach Smith’s job to prepare the New York energy grid for the future. Our Vice President of System and Resource Planning manages the team that looks at all potential reliability issues the grid could face, from a week to 10 years in the future. The team also looks at all proposed energy resources that seek to enter the grid via our Interconnection Queue process, and the impact these resources could have on reliability. In the past several years, we’ve made changes to the process of app...
Episode 13: Key Capture Energy’s Jeff Bishop on the Critical Role of Storage in Greening the Grid
March 01, 2021 16:00 - 23 minutes - 16 MBJeff Bishop, CEO and co-founder of Key Capture Energy, got his start in the energy business 20 years ago developing wind farms in New York and around the world. In 2016, he and New York native Dan Fitzgerald crunched the numbers and saw the future in battery storage. Together, they formed Key Capture Energy. The Albany-based company has 54 megawatts of storage in operation in New York and Texas, with an additional 200 MW under construction and a whopping 2.5 gigawatts in development in the ...
Episode 12: Emilie Nelson Advises the CAC that a System of Markets, Physics and People Will Produce a Reliable Zero-Emissions Grid
January 19, 2021 15:00 - 14 minutes - 10.3 MBEmilie Nelson, NYISO’s Executive Vice President, has more than two decades of experience in the energy industry. She’s also a member of the Power Generation Advisory Panel to the New York State Climate Action Council (CAC). The CAC will produce the scoping plan for a 70% renewable grid by 2030 and zero-emissions by 2040, placing Nelson in an active role for the most aggressive clean energy plan in the nation. "It’s been called a ‘moonshot’ goal," Nelson said, in regard to the Climate Leaders...
Episode 11: John Reese talks "Big Think" on Power Gen's Clean Energy Future
December 15, 2020 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBJohn Reese has a long history in the energy business, from roles with New York State, the U.S. Department of Energy, and his current position as Senior Vice President at Eastern Generation, which currently provides more than 20% of New York City’s energy capacity. He is also serving on the Power Generation Advisory Panel. It’s one of six panels organized to assist New York’s Climate Action Council, which is responsible for developing a scoping plan to guide the state on its journey toward re...
Episode 10: Bob Hiney Offers His Wisdom & Advice on the Future of New York’s Grid
September 18, 2020 14:00 - 24 minutes - 17.2 MBWhat do you get when your avowed hobby is “energy policy?” With Bob Hiney, you get a man steeped in the minutia of New York’s energy markets, with four decades of experience in the electric power industry. Hiney, a member of the NYISO Board of Directors for 14 years, previously chaired the Management Committee and filled other important roles. He recently retired, but vowed to follow us closely. Looking back over his long and storied career, Hiney reflected on how New York’s energy markets h...
Episode 9: From COVID-19 to the CLCPA, Our Power Trends Report is a Must-Read for Grid Stakeholders & Policymakers
July 20, 2020 14:00 - 16 minutes - 11.3 MBWhat goes into the making of Power Trends, our annual report that tells the story of the electric grid in New York State? And why do you need to read it? In our latest podcast, the NYISO’s Ray Stalter and Gary Davidson discuss how Power Trends 2020: The Vision for a Greener Grid, is created to inform policymakers, stakeholders, and others interested in the state of the electric grid in New York, and the forces shaping the grid of the future. Power Trends covers the “need to know” issues asso...
Episode 8: Wes Yeomans on Staying Calm, Sequestering Operators, & the Virtues of Virtual Campfires
April 09, 2020 14:00 - 29 minutes - 20.6 MBWhat do you do when faced with the unknown risks of a new disease if you’re in charge of the reliability of the energy grid in New York State? For Wes Yeomans, our Vice President of Operations, the advent of COVID-19 meant putting into place our pandemic response plan. And for 37 NYISO Control Room operators, managers, and support staff, that meant total sequestration from the outside world until further notice. “It was prudent to isolate them from society,” Yeomans explains on the most re...
Episode 7: Clarkson President Anthony Collins on a Culture of Innovation
March 05, 2020 15:00 - 18 minutes - 13 MBDr. Anthony Collins, President of Clarkson University since 2003, believes in the importance of finding new ways to promote a culture of innovation in one of the nation’s top technical colleges. It’s a culture engrained in our mission here at the NYISO as we transition to the grid of the future. Why does that matter so much today? We are in the midst of some of the biggest changes to the energy grid that we’ve seen in a century, as we move from traditional forms of generation to resources ...
Episode 6: State of the Grid with Rich Dewey, Outlines NYISO Initiatives to Meet Climate & Policy Goals
February 05, 2020 15:00 - 19 minutes - 13.7 MBIn 2020, the pace of change on the power grid is being driven by aggressive legislation and the ways in which clean energy resources are being economically reevaluated. In the past, reliability at the lowest-cost solution for ratepayers was paramount, but the urgency of climate change has shifted policies, priorities, and resources. How the transition plays out will be shaped by innovation and economic drivers. In Episode 6 of the Power Trends Podcast, NYISO President & CEO Rich Dewey share...
Episode 5: RFF's Karen Palmer on Carbon Pricing & Multistate Impacts
January 02, 2020 15:00 - 19 minutes - 13.2 MBDr. Palmer is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Future of Power Initiative at Resources for the Future (RFF), one of the oldest and most prestigious environmental think tanks in the country. In Episode 5 of our Power Trends Podcast, Dr. Palmer speaks with our Vice President of External Affairs, Kevin Lanahan about a study recently conducted by RFF on the New York ISO’s carbon pricing proposal. Findings of the study project the following outcomes, using the RFF’s Engineering, Env...
Episode 4: Demystifying the Interconnection of Renewables to the Grid
November 13, 2019 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBThe level of decarbonization required by statutes to combat climate change in New York State, "will result in a grid and power system that are unrecognizable from the one we run today." So says Zach Smith, Vice President of System and Resource Planning at the NYISO. In Episode 4 of the Power Trends Podcast, Smith takes us through the process required to vet new power generation projects in a given ‘class year.’ “It’s not as simple as addressing each project on its own,” explains Smith. “If y...
Episode 3: Energy Economist Dr. Sue Tierney on Benefits of Carbon Pricing
October 16, 2019 14:00 - 23 minutes - 16.5 MBDr. Susan Tierney, renowned energy expert with the Analysis Group and former head of policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, recently completed a study of our proposal to add a “social cost” of carbon dioxide emissions to New York’s wholesale energy markets. In this interview with Kevin Lanahan, Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications at the NYISO, Tierney explains how carbon pricing would make cleaner energy more profitable, and carbon-emitting energy more expensive...
Episode 2: Clean Energy, Climate Change, and Creating a Culture of Evolution
August 27, 2019 14:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MBThere’s a new evolution coming to the energy grid, according to Emilie Nelson, NYISO Executive Vice President, and that makes it a great time to be working in the industry. Nelson described the important role of the NYISO’s grid operators and its wholesale energy markets in addressing the recent passing of the state’s landmark Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which seeks to grow the amount of clean energy on the energy grid, “The job is getting more complex,” she said. “Our o...
Episode 1: Climate Leadership & New York Policy
July 23, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 8.61 MBThe New York ISO's first ever Power Trends Podcast, with newly appointed President & CEO Rich Dewey, discusses New York energy policy, carbon pricing and who has the best job in the country. During his conversation, Dewey discussed the state’s interest in promoting aggressive clean energy goals. The NYISO is currently discussing adding a “social cost” of carbon into the wholesale price of energy. By instituting this carbon price into our markets, we will be sending a signal to existing gene...