2019 Stanford Energy Internships in California and the West: California ISO

State- and city-level efforts are essential in our fight against climate change, especially in the field of energy. Stanford University is committed to helping by integrating its students into the local energy and climate ecosystem through Stanford Energy Internships in California and the West (SEICW), an energy-related summer internship program. This position is funded; you will be one of two Stanford students placed at CAISO; their office is located in Folsom, California.

The program runs from Monday, June 24, 2019 to Friday, August 30, 2019. 

Organization/Agency mission or role in state government:
The California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) is located in Folsom, California and manages the flow of electricity across the high-voltage, long-distance power lines that make up over 80 percent of California’s electric power grid. The not-for-profit public benefit corporation safeguards the economy and well-being of over 30 million customers by "keeping the lights" on 24/7.

The ISO has one of the most modern electricity generation and delivery control centers in North America. It has been described as a hybrid of the New York Stock Exchange and NASA’s mission control and powers the world’s eighth largest economy - California. The ISO designed its control center with a clean, green world in mind by using the latest high-tech grid reliability and renewable resource integration tools. To deliver all that clean energy, the ISO employs advanced technologies to monitor the power grid in milliseconds to ensure the 26,000 mile transmission network and over 850 power plants are always ready to meet the electricity needs of people in California and in the six states that are members of the western Energy Imbalance Market.

As the nerve center for the power grid, the ISO matches buyers and sellers of electricity, facilitating over 28,000 market transactions every day to ensure enough power is on hand to meet demand. Every five minutes the ISO forecasts electrical demand, accounts for operating reserves and dispatches the lowest cost power plant unit to meet demand while ensuring enough transmission capacity is available to deliver the power.

The ISO is the only system operator in the western United States supported by a competitive auction-style electricity market. The California ISO is the hub of efforts underway at state and government agencies and research laboratories to advance grid and system technologies, policies and processes because the ISO must use innovations to reliably operate the grid at all times and identify and dispatch the most cost efficient power to meet demand. The ISO is leading the way to tomorrow’s energy network through the following strategies:

• Lead the transition to renewable energy;
• Maintain reliability during industry transformation; and
• Expand regional collaboration to unlock mutual benefits.

The ISO is leading the world in the development of policies to effectively integrate large amounts of variable output renewable generation into the wholesale grid. The ISO is also leading the development of policies that enable distribution system resources, such as demand response, rooftop solar, and energy storage to participate in the ISO’s wholesale market. This will, for the first time, empower consumers to have the ability to become energy suppliers as well. 

The ISO is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and complies with standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.

Assignments:
The intern will assist by performing research and analysis in the areas of energy and environmental policy to support the quality and performance of the California ISO’s electricity market. In addition, the fellow may assist senior staff with electricity market forecast analysis and reporting.

A successful experience for the intern would be to learn about current issues in energy and climate policy, and by performing research, writing papers, and conducting analysis related to the quality of the California ISO’s market performance. The intern would assist senior staff in their review of how the electricity market is performing from an engineering and policy perspective.

For the California ISO, a successful engagement would be to host a student who is passionate about shaping the future of the California ISO’s electricity market through engineering and economic analysis. To be successful, the student would need strong communication, research, writing and analysis skills.

Possible Projects include:

• Resource Adequacy (RA): Resource adequacy policy development to ensure procurement of resources with the right attributes and capabilities to meet the future needs of a more decentralized, variable, and democratized grid.
• Distributed Energy Reources (DERs): Policy development around the use, integration, and value of distributed energy resources.
• Transmission Access: How to restructure transmission access charges and policies given expansion of distributed energy resources and appropriate means to charge for the use, operation, and maintenance of the transmission system.

Potential Mentors:

• Mark Rothleder, VP Market Quality and Renewable Integration
• Shucheng Liu, Principal, Market Development