2023 Shultz Energy Fellowships: Western Interstate Energy Board

Regional-, 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 energy and climate ecosystems in the West through the Shultz Energy Fellowships program, an energy-related summer fellowship program for undergraduate and graduate students. You will be one of two Stanford students placed at WIEB in Denver, Colorado.

Named in honor of former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, one of the most widely admired American public servants of the past half-century, the program offers a suite of paid, energy-related public service fellowships for Stanford students in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii during the summer. 

The fellowships run from Monday, June 26, 2023 to Friday, September 1, 2023.

Western Interstate Energy Board

The Western Interstate Energy Board (WIEB) is an organization of eleven western states and two western Canadian provinces. The governor of each state and the premier of each province appoint a member to the Board. WIEB’s purpose is to “provide the instruments and framework for cooperative state efforts to enhance the economy of the West and contribute to the well-being of the region's people."  WIEB works to achieve this purpose through cooperative efforts among member states and provinces and the federal government. WIEB’s office is in downtown Denver, Colorado.  

For more information, please visit WIEB’s homepage.

WIEB Mentors

Maury Galbraith, Executive Director of WIEB, will act as the principal mentor for this project. Mr. Galbraith provides overall strategic direction to the Western Interstate Energy Board (WIEB), enabling the organization to effectively identify and address important energy issues in the West and to support cooperative western state/provincial efforts in the energy field.

Laura Rennick, Director of State, Federal, and International Affairs, will also act as a mentor for this project. Ms. Rennick is responsible for managing communications with the Western Interstate Energy Board’s state, federal, and international partners.

2023 Internship Project – “Electric Utility Forward Purchasing in the Western Bilateral Wholesale Electricity Market”  

The goal of this project is to investigate the forward contracting practices of electric utilities in the West. Electric utilities in the West have established trading floors that regularly engage in “Front Office Transactions” to manage power supply risk.  “Front Office Transactions” can include fixed price physical power, index price physical power, fixed price financial power, as well as financial and physical call options and swaps.  If the contract is for physical power, the generating source is often unspecified.  The transactions typically occur between one month and twenty-four months in advance of delivery when a large number of buyers and sellers are willing to participate in the market. Knowledge and understanding of the purpose and practice of electric utility forward contracting is important in many public policy contexts, including the design and performance of organized wholesale electricity markets, of regional resource adequacy programs, and of regional greenhouse gas accounting and reporting programs.  

The students will be the lead researchers on the project, with guidance from WIEB advisors, and will develop surveys and conduct interviews with electric utility trading floor personnel.  The students will investigate the goals and objects of utility forward contracting.  They will also describe the risk management policies and procedures that guide and limit these transactions.  The students will collect anonymized data from electric utilities and tabulate the types of physical and financial products being traded, quantify the time between contract signing and contract delivery or settlement, and count the number of counterparties active in market.  Students will investigate whether there is a trend away from contracts with an unspecified generating source with tightening supply and demand conditions in the West.  The students will highlight ongoing and potential changes to electric utility forward contracting that could result in improved performance of organized wholesale electricity markets, of regional resource adequacy programs, or regional greenhouse gas accounting and reporting programs.  

This project will provide students with substantive public policy work, clear direction, and guidance on how to complete the work, and the autonomy to be creative and to conduct independent research.  The students will create a written public policy brief documenting the goals and objects of utility forward contracting, describing the risk management policies and procedures that guide and limit the utility contracting, and discussing ongoing and potential changes to forward contracting that could result in improved performance of organized wholesale electricity markets, regional resource adequacy programs, or regional greenhouse gas accounting and reporting programs. Finally, the students will have the opportunity to present their work to state and provincial policymakers and regulators in the West.  At the conclusion of a successful project, the students will feel that they are a part of the WIEB team and have made a significant contribution to enhancing regional electricity policy in the West.   

WIEB anticipates staff will have a flexible work policy for summer 2023. If this is the case, the fellow will have the option to work fully in-person, partially remote, or fully remote, with in-person work highly encouraged. As the selected fellow will be part of a collaborative, two-person Stanford team, both fellows will need to be working in the same way (in-person, partially remote, or fully remote).

2022 Graduate Fellow

• Evan Savage, MS ‘23, CEE, Atmosphere/Energy Program
  Graduate Fellow, Western Interstate Energy Board
• Learn more about Evan's experience at WIEB:
  • Blog post
  • Final project