2026 Shultz Energy Fellowships: California Department of Water Resources: Power Operations Management (Undergraduates)

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.

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, Hawaii, and Utah during the summer. 

The fellowships run from Monday, June 22, 2026 to Friday, August 28, 2026.

Organization/Agency mission or role in state government

The State Water Project (SWP) is one of the largest water and power systems in the world. It is a water storage and delivery system of reservoirs, aqueducts, power plants, and pumping plants extending more than 700 miles—two-thirds the length of California. It conveys, on average, 2.4 million acre-feet of water annually to 29 long-term water contractors serving 27 million customers and 750,000 acres of farmland. The SWP consist of 21 pumping plants, 8 hydroelectric power plants (includes three pumped storage plants), 25 dams, and 34 reservoirs. This infrastructure includes USA’s highest earth-filled dam (Oroville Dam) and the largest single lift pumps (close to 2000 feet) in the USA, used to move water over the Tehachapi Mountains into southern California. Though the primary purpose of the SWP is water supply, the project produces hydroelectric power to operate pumping facilities required to move water from Northern to Southern California and also sells power when it generates a surplus of electricity.

The State Water Project – Division of Operations and Maintenance (O&M) – Power Operations Management (POM) is responsible for managing the SWP power portfolio and mitigate risks from climate change and evolving power markets while supporting grid reliability in an environmentally sustainable and regulatory compliant manner to meet SWP water deliveries. POM’s objective is to have a process in place to plan the SWP portfolio of energy resources to ensure reliable, efficient, and cost-effective delivery of water to State Water Contractors. To be able to accomplish these goals POM closely follows and adapts strategies to energy markets’ evolution and market design changes, energy price profiles, renewables development costs, reliability obligations and mandates.

Potential Project

DAME (Day Ahead Market Enhancements) is expected to go live for CAISO on May 1, 2026.  This introduces some significant changes to the reliability products and has the potential to significantly affect the energy markets. The proposed project would use available data post change (May/June) to try to identify how the market performance changes and seek recommendations on how to adjust interactions with the market to try to reduce potential negative effects.

Mentors

• Ryan Wilbur, Manager Power Management & Optimization
• Tawnly Pranger, Senior Engineer Power Planning & Analysis Unit

Work Environment

This is a remote opportunity.