2026 Shultz Energy Fellowships: Western Electricity Coordinating Council

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, Nevada, and Utah during the summer. 

The fellowship runs from Monday, June 22, 2026 to Friday, August 28, 2026. 

Western Electricity Coordinating Council

The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) promotes Bulk Electric System reliability in the Western Interconnection. WECC is the regional entity responsible for compliance monitoring and enforcement. In addition, WECC provides an environment for developing reliability standards, and coordinating the operating and planning activities of its members.

WECC is geographically the largest and most diverse of the six regional entities with delegated authority from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). WECC’s region, the Western Interconnection, extends from Canada to Mexico and includes Alberta and British Columbia, the northern part of Baja California, Mexico, and all or parts of the 14 Western states in between.

WECC’s mission is to effectively and efficiently mitigate risks to the reliability and security of the Western Interconnection’s bulk power system. With an interconnection-wide perspective; an understanding of stakeholder needs; clearly communicated insights, analyses, and outreach; and highly skilled and engaged employees, WECC is the voice of reliability throughout the Western Interconnection.

For more information, visit www.wecc.org.

2026 Fellowship Project

The mix of power generation resources in the Western Interconnection continues to transition from traditional thermal resources to inverter-based, or variable generation resources such as wind and solar. The transition puts stress on the natural gas system, as natural-gas-fired generation is used to constantly balance electric demand with fluctuating power supply.

This fellowship will work with natural-gas-fired generation owners and operators to:

• Identify the natural gas pipeline that supplies fuel to the individual power plants
• Determine whether the plant can take gas from multiple pipes
• Determine the physical location of the plant(s) on the pipeline and document for mapping and analysis
• For intrastate pipes, determine the upstream interstate pipeline supplying fuel to the intrastate pipe
• Determine firmness of pipeline capacity and physical fuel supply
• Determine whether the power plant has dual fuel capability and what that secondary fuel is

If time allows, the fellow will work with the various pipelines to identify:

• Natural gas pipelines serving the Western Interconnection
• Individual pipeline capacity
• Individual pipeline storage capacity
• Services offered by each pipeline

The fellow will also meet regularly with WECC staff to provide updates and ask questions, as needed.

By the end of the fellowship, students will have documented the information they collected in a spreadsheet and performed analysis of how the natural-gas system can affect electric system reliability. The students will prepare a summary of the findings of the analysis and present the results to the WECC Reliability Assessments and Modeling team, industry experts, and others, as needed or as time allows.

Potential Mentor

Layne Brown, senior reliability analyst, reliability assessments, will be the mentor for this project. The goal of WECC reliability assessments is to promote the reliability of the bulk power system in the Western Interconnection. Mr. Brown has worked in the electric and natural gas industries for over 35 years, including time at a regulated utility (San Diego Gas and Electric), power marketing entities (Illinova and Duke Energy), and, for the past 19 years, at WECC. He is a graduate of San Diego State University. 

Work Environment

The role is 100% remote eligible. The fellow will be asked to come to Salt Lake City, Utah to meet the team at the beginning and at the close of the fellowship. Otherwise, the role is remote.