ISO-NE CEO keynote highlights importance of collaboration during clean energy transition

I highly recommend reading the article below (Read More button) – it fits with my own experiences advocating for integrated resource planning in New England since January 2019.

“His address also outlined the ISO’s four pillars for a reliable, cost-effective transition: significant amounts of clean energy, balancing resources to ensure reliability, energy adequacy, and robust transmission. He also spoke to the challenges of coordinating the clean energy transition across multiple jurisdictions, noting, “There is no central planner in New England making these decisions.” He emphasized the importance of stakeholder collaboration to maintain New England’s high standard of electric system reliability while making progress toward state policy goals.”

It’s unfortunate that there really is no appetite for collaboration at the State levels to apply integrated resource planning methods, from what I have observed, since I first discussed this concept within NESCOE circles, which started in January 2019 with a meeting with the MA Energy folks discussing how to incorporate State Energy goals and Green Buyers goals into wholesale capacity markets. I was fortunate to have been the Software Architect for ISO New England’s first capacity market clearing engine, so I had some thoughts to share that I thought would be useful.

I finally gave up trying after receiving an “insightful phone call” from a member representing the CT PUC and NESCOE regarding my comments on FCEM. I learned a hard lesson that day: “Software engineers should never swim in waters dominated by politicians, no matter how good *they think* the idea may be”. This experience has been logged under the category “no good deed shall go unpunished”. 

Keep up the good fight Gordon! So happy to see all the talk about carbon taxes has subsided.