Episode 16: Gil C. Quiniones, President & CEO of NYPA, on Decarbonization, Building a Better Grid & Disaster Recovery

Columbia University’s Daniel Zarrilli knows a thing or two about New York City and the effects of climate change.

For almost a decade prior to Hurricane Sandy, he worked on the city’s waterfront, managing maintenance and construction of the city’s piers and bulkheads, overseeing cruise terminals and other maritime assets, and working with coastal communities on a variety of local projects. That experience along the city’s 520-mile shoreline, plus his training as an engineer, put him in view of Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he was standing up his initiative to rebuild New York following Hurricane Sandy and make it more resilient.

Bloomberg appointed Zarrilli as the city’s first resilience director. He then became Chief Climate Policy Advisor under Mayor Bill de Blasio, helping usher landmark energy policy through the city council, which mandates emissions reductions produced by the city's largest buildings of 40 percent by 2030.

Now Zarrilli serves as Special Advisor for Climate and Sustainability at Columbia University, helping to create a new world-leading climate school and advising on pathways to achieve the university’s deep decarbonization goals. 

This wealth of deep experience and expertise makes him a valuable addition to the NYISO’s Environmental Advisory Council, a group of outside experts that informs NYISO leadership on evolving state and federal climate policy and environmental justice considerations.

Local Law 97, New York City’s building decarbonization law passed in 2019, requires most buildings over 25,000 square feet to meet new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits, with even stricter limits coming into effect in 2030.

There are already indications that the policy is working, Zarrilli said. 

 “New Yorkers have so much to be proud of for the progress that has been made,” Zarrilli said. “There were $20 billion in climate adaptation investments made after Hurricane Sandy, everything from flood protection to grid upgrades to new elevated hospitals in our coastal communities.”  

“I think the much more exciting thing about Local Law 97 is how it has catalyzed this marketplace in New York City around clean energy technology, innovation, and investment that is all now centered in New York City,” he said. 

“So much of our infrastructure was built for a world and a climate that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

He pointed to concerns about global economic conditions and supply chain challenges that can make electrification projects difficult. In the offshore wind space, he noted that some coastal communities have zoning concerns and questions that must be addressed and answered.

Zarrilli credits the NYISO’s forward-thinking approach to the wholesale electric market, which he says will drive incentives to speed up the clean energy transition. 

“The role that the NYISO plays to help provide that stimulus and incentive is really important, and not a fully appreciated role,” Zarrilli said, “but it's a critical one that I think the state and other ISOs are going to continue to learn from.

Additional Resources and Information

The New York ISO Environmental Advisory Council

Columbia Climate School

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You might say Nicole Bouchez’s role as the NYISO’s Consumer Interest Liaison and Senior Principal Economist combines deep data analytics with good, old-fashioned customer service. 

She has an especially important responsibility evaluating the impacts of major market design changes for stakeholders, policymakers, and market participants. That’s where her PhD in International Economics comes in handy. 

But a large part of her job also includes working directly with some of the largest energy consumers in the state so they understand those studies and how changes to electric system planning, operations, and decarbonization policies might impact their bottom line. 

“Consumers are always concerned about costs,” Bouchez said. “They're also concerned about the technology switch that's happening and how smooth that's going to be. They're concerned about reliability, as we all are.”

In addition to performing consumer impact analyses, her office also responds to consumer questions about the markets and provides important training and information sessions. Her knowledge of the New York energy markets and her time as Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London, make her especially suited for that responsibility.

Bouchez’s role is unique even among ISOs and other research entities. She says one of the things she likes most about her job is how outward-facing it is – interacting with a diverse cross-section of market participants and stakeholders invested in the future of how the electric system will perform.

Her office accesses “real-world” electric systems data in its presentations and materials for stakeholders, providing a deep but comprehensive look into how the energy industry and the grid is changing.  “We’re able to leverage that information in our analyses, which is quite exciting,” she said.

Bouchez, who co-chaired a task force in 2017 designing a carbon pricing proposal, is optimistic about the role that markets can play in supporting the grid of the future.
“We learned a great deal about how we can incorporate carbon dioxide emissions costs into our markets to support clean energy policy goals without jeopardizing reliability,” Bouchez noted.

She explains that if competitive wholesale electric markets can integrate the cost of carbon dioxide emissions, there’s more incentive to efficiently invest in cleaner resources.

As New York State studies its options to meet the goals of the CLCPA, Bouchez thinks the task force’s efforts are important and especially timely.

“I think that there is a desire to lower our carbon emissions as a country and as a state. It's taking us down a future that I could have never anticipated in 2017 when we started this. This is a really exciting time for [the industry],” she said.

Additional Resources and Information:

• At the NYISO, "Independent" is (Literally) our Middle Name
• Energy vs. Capacity: How Teamwork Between Markets Supports a Least-Cost Approach to Grid Reliability

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In this episode of our Power Trends podcast, Julie Tighe discusses her role leading the New York League of Conservation Voters, and her recent addition to the NYISO’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC). The EAC, which was formed in 2005, provides information and analysis on state and federal environmental policies relative to NYISO’s mission of grid reliability.

“No one is going to be happy if the air conditioning goes out in a heat wave. So, we need to be strategic about that,” she said.

NYLCV’s efforts range from advocating for clean air and water to working with the real estate industry on constructing greener buildings. 

“[The League is] the political arm of the environmental movement here in New York, where we really hold elected officials accountable for their actions on environmental policy,” she explained.

In the interview, Julie discusses new grid-level technology being developed, including thermal energy networks, that could address growing consumer electric demand. Tighe said it’s crucial to avoid “pie in the sky policy” and work on practical solutions that address decarbonization goals while maintaining system reliability.

Julie also speaks to the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, arguably the nation’s most ambitious set of state decarbonization policies.  “On the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act…the state went through a robust planning process with a significant amount of public input, lots of stakeholders who were involved in the conversation, really setting out the roadmap for how we are going to achieve these big, bold, ambitious goals of getting to an economy that is 85% emissions reduction by 2050,” she said.

“We need to have big stretch goals…but I also think we need to make sure that they are, in fact, technically achievable in a manner that's affordable,” she said. 

Read the announcement of Julie Tighe’s addition to the New York ISO’s Environmental Advisory Council

Additional Resources and Information

Environmental Advisory Council
New York League of Conservation Voters 

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New York’s recent peak day for electricity consumption came during a heatwave, as millions of people relied on their air conditioners to keep cool. That’s not unusual. However, some of the circumstances leading up to that day still provided a challenge.

On our latest Power Trends podcast, NYISO’s Vice President of Operations Aaron Markham discusses what goes into maintaining a reliable grid during a late-season heatwave. 

The peak load on Sept. 6 was just over 30,200 megawatts. New York’s historic peak demand is 33,956 megawatts, recorded in July 2013.

Markham pointed out that there have been several system changes since then, like generator retirements.  

It’s unusual to see a peak day in September. The high-demand days usually come in July or August when hot, humid conditions drive up the desire for air conditioning. Besides the peak coming later in the season than expected, there were other unusual factors that came up.

“We had some generation that became forced out of service,” Markham said.

When something like that happens, the operators in the control room activate contingency plans.

“That resulted in us committing some additional generation to make sure we had sufficient supply,” he explained.

On a peak day like this, very close coordination with utility companies is also essential.

“The expectation is that we've talked through all the potential contingencies that could occur,” Markham said. “What is a system going to look like? What is the set of resources that we're going to use to resolve that and make sure that everybody is on board, from the neighbors to the utilities in the state, to the NYISO operators in the room.”

Challenging situations aren’t limited to warmer months. Markham’s team of operators had to deal with a different set of conditions brought on by sudden extreme cold in December 2022.  

With high demand for natural gas to heat people’s homes, meant less gas available for generating electricity.

“We have a survey process where we actually reach out to the generators to look at…what is their fuel supply situation? Do they have alternate oil backup in the tanks? Are they expecting deliveries of that?” Markham explained. “So that's another aspect that comes into winter operations, all of which we did leading up to this event.”

Events like this demonstrate New York’s system is reliable, Markham said.

“We were able to maintain flows within limits, all the various parameters on the power system within limits. And we still did have, through the event, some surplus capability,” he said.

To learn more about our Operations Team and how they manage the grid, listen to the podcast.

Additional Resources and Information

Real-Time Dashboard

Shaving Peaks with the Sun

Staying Cool in the Deep Freeze: How NYISO’s Forecasters Performed During Winter Storm Elliott

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In our latest podcast, we sat down with Rana Mukerji, NYISO’s SVP of Market Structures, to learn about his journey from growing up in Calcutta, India to becoming widely regarded as one of the ­­industry's leading designers of electricity markets. We ask Rana about his past career experience working for General Electric and ABB, and how the markets must evolve to accommodate a new set of renewable resources while keeping the grid reliable.

Wholesale competitive electricity markets are an essential component of grid reliability in New York. Markets play a critical role in reconciling supply with demand which must be in perfect balance at all times. 

As decarbonization policies drive an increase in intermittent, weather-dependent energy such as wind and solar, it has never been more important to understand markets’ contribution to reliability. There are few people more qualified to explain this evolution than NYISO Senior Vice President of Market Structures Rana Mukerji. Rana was instrumental in the early research and data simulation that informed the structure of markets in New York. This edition of our Power Trends podcast is a master class on the wholesale electricity markets that the New York ISO administers and how the energy, capacity, and ancillary markets work together.

Mukerji identifies two primary shifts affecting the market. First, new renewable resources coming onto the grid are driving down energy prices because of their low variable costs – particularly because they have essentially no fuel costs. At the same time, the system is becoming more volatile because that supply is weather dependent. To maintain reliability, the market assigns a premium to ancillary services that can balance: “The premium value of the future energy supply is flexibility,” he explains. “We are repricing reserves to make it more attractive to perform when needed and rewarding that flexibility.” 

“It’s going to be a vastly more complex grid, but it is going to really drive our transition to a decarbonized and sustainable future,” he adds. 

Rana’s path to the NYISO began decades ago with his first plane ride from Calcutta, India to New York City. From there he boarded a bus to Troy, New York where he began his graduate studies in electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) on a full scholarship and later worked as an energy consultant with GE. Today, he uses his deep knowledge and experience in economics and engineering to prepare markets for the grid of the future. 

In this podcast, Rana explains how the markets are changing, and how to make sure the grid stays reliable as we get closer to a 2040 goal of a zero-emissions grid.

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Episode 26 of the Power Trends podcast delivers a change of pace for our listeners. In this episode, NYISO market mitigation economist Michelle Merlis discusses her long and challenging path to becoming a world-class trail runner. 

While Michelle's early years found her on the basketball court, she discovered her passion for competitive running while earning a master’s degree in agricultural economics at Purdue University. After graduating from Purdue in 2012, she moved to the Capital Region and joined the Albany Running Exchange. After completing more than two dozen races and covering hundreds of trail miles, she accomplished something she never thought was possible.

“How I found myself here is both simple and wildly complex… 
it was the culmination of years of hard work and consistent progress…” 

In April 2022, Michelle ran and won the women’s division of the Breakneck Point Trail Marathon which secured her a spot on the U.S. National Team at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championships in Thailand.  

Keep pace with Michelle's remarkable journey by listening to the latest episode of the Power Trends podcast.

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“The objective is the reliability of the grid,” VP of System & Resource Planning Zach Smith says about the process his group oversees studying the impacts of connecting new electric resources to the grid. Because of state policies and technological advancements, more developers are seeking to connect to the grid, creating more demands on the New York ISO in overseeing the study process.

Smith is a frequent guest of the Power Trends podcast. His conversations on grid planning, reliability, and resource interconnection are routinely among the most popular of our series. In this episode, he discusses how the NYISO is required to study the impacts of new resources like large wind, solar and battery storage facilities seeking to connect to the electric system.

“It’s being able to integrate new resources onto the grid as we transition to a renewable future,” he says. “That means that as we connect these new resources, we analyze their impact, and identify upgrades to maintain the performance of the system.”

State and federal clean energy policies are driving a dramatic increase in clean energy projects entering the Interconnection Queue, where they will be studied for feasibility and grid reliability impacts. The process requires the expertise of many of the NYISO’s most skilled engineers and analysts. 

“It’s something I take great pride in: the talent in the team and experts we have,” says Smith. “But we also have a lot of challenges ahead of us.”

The Interconnection Queue has experienced change. A few years ago, it was typical to see between one and two hundred resources applying. Today, the Interconnection Queue contains nearly 500 proposals. Factors driving this historic growth include New York’s requirement of a zero-emissions grid by 2040, new incentives to build new solar, wind, and storage resources, and public policy needs that incentivize new transmission investment. 

In this podcast, Smith discusses the three successive studies that examine the impact of each new resource, as well as their collective impact and the potential need for system upgrades. The process involves continuous collaboration between the developers, local utilities, and the NYISO. Some project proposals are more fully realized than others. Sometimes a resource will elect to drop out of the process, requiring a new round of studies, adding to the time it takes for all remaining resources to get to the end. 

The NYISO has several initiatives underway to make the process more efficient and user-friendly for applicants. “The technology continues to change,” Smith said. “We’re working hard here in New York to keep things moving along.” 

Additional Resources & Information

• Whitepaper: The NYISO Interconnection Process
• Press Release:  NYISO Completes Interconnection Study Process to Connect New Resources to the Electric Grid
• Explainer:  How New Electric Resources Connect to the Grid

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In our latest Power Trends Podcast, we interview two leading Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts about the impact of wholesale natural gas prices on winter electricity costs in New York.

We spoke to Dr. Tyler Hodge, Senior Economist in the Office of Energy Analysis, and Corrina Ricker, a Certified Data Scientist on the Natural Gas Markets team, to dive into the findings of EIA’s latest Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO). Hodge said that he expects electricity prices in New York in 2023 to be about 10% higher than in 2022, which is in line with the U.S. overall. “The fuel cost is the biggest driver to wholesale prices,” he said.

In a conversation with the NYISO published earlier this year, Hodge and Ricker explained the relationship between fuel costs and energy prices, and how recent geopolitical factors, like the war in Ukraine, and pandemic-related slowdowns, helped to create low energy supplies. Supplies are rebounding, they said, but demand is also up nationally.

In this recent interview, Ricker also said that increased global demand for natural gas, followed by U.S. exports of liquid natural gas to Europe are driving electric prices higher. Colder-than-average temperatures predicted for the next few months could also have an upward impact on prices through the heating season, she said. 

While the amount of electricity coming from renewables continues to rise nationally and in New York, natural gas remains the largest source of generation, they added. 

About the U.S. Energy Information Administration
The EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policy making, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment. Read their Short-Term Energy Outlook.

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Every five minutes, 24 hours a day, electricity in New York State is bought and sold through competitive wholesale electric markets administered by the NYISO.

And while we may not think about electricity the same way we do about other products and services, competitive wholesale electric markets are truly dynamic, with hundreds of buyers and sellers, or “market participants,” involved in the process of meeting consumer demand for power at the least cost available. But how do we make sure that prices in these electric markets are fair and that all market participants act according to the rules and requirements?

That’s where Shaun Johnson and his team come in.

As the NYISO’s Director of Market Mitigation and Analysis, Shaun Johnson leads a group of 25 electricity markets experts who “police” the system, protecting consumers by making sure prices accurately reflect operating conditions and generator costs.

To meet its goal, the Market Mitigation and Analysis (MMA) team examines data detailing market transactions and operating behaviors of generating assets to verify that consumer prices reflect competitive market circumstances. If they detect anomalies or a trend that raises questions, they possess the ability to investigate and request additional information from market participants.

Johnson, the subject of our latest Power Trends podcast, is an economist who oversees a team of mathematicians, computer scientists, former energy traders, and technicians with years of experience in power plant and energy industry operations. In short, the team is responsible for evaluating the performance of the markets and identifying attempts to exercise market power.

Team members even crisscross the state regularly to visit generators and observe their operations first-hand. This helps team members understand and verify trading or bidding behavior in the markets later on.

“Less than one-half of one percent of our market outcomes end up requiring action,” Johnson is quick to point out. “But those sanctions, or penalties, have resulted in just over $13 million dollars being refunded back to New York consumers in the last three years.”

In keeping with the important independence, the NYISO MMA group and an external Market Monitoring Unit (MMU) work independently and collaboratively to protect consumers and participants in the ISO-administered markets. Together, these guardians of the grid report not only to the NYISO’s Board of Directors, but also to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the industry.

Johnson noted that electric prices are expected to continue to rise this winter due to spikes in global demand for fossil fuels that are lagging supply, as well as global instability caused by the war in Ukraine and economic instability across Europe.

Wholesale, competitive markets remain the best way to make sure consumers receive the least possible price for their electricity, even in the face of rising fossil fuel costs, Johnson notes. And the MMA team, acting as sheriff of these markets, makes sure these prices are achieved fairly; especially when prices rise.

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The NYISO recently released a new report that identifies the unprecedented level of electrical system investment necessary to achieve New York State’s climate policy requirements. Developed in collaboration with stakeholders and state agencies, the 2021-2040 System and Resource Outlook (the Outlook) uses various scenarios to identify potential pathways for transmission and supply investments that will support a reliable transition of the electric grid. 

In our latest Power Trends podcast, NYISO Vice President for System and Resource Planning Zach Smith explains the potential impacts of the changing resource mix on the needs of the electric grid to maintain reliability. State policies, like the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, are having profound impacts on the electric system and decisions for system investments to keep the lights on.

System planning has always been a vital part of what we do, along with managing New York’s electric grid reliability and wholesale competitive markets. The NYISO is required to study the electric system for potential risks to meeting stringent reliability rules and make recommendations on how to maintain grid reliability into the future.   

“I’m really proud of the work our team has done to consider different scenarios and identify the actions we all need to be taking now,” Smith said. “The intent is to give policymakers and stakeholders a view of the future that considers the physical constraints of the system so we can make informed investment decisions that preserve grid reliability.”

By simulating different future system configurations and forecasting the transmission constraints for each, we were able to identify the following key findings:

1. State climate mandates are driving the need for unprecedented levels of new generation capacity to achieve decarbonization and maintain system reliability.
2. Electrification of buildings and transportation driven by state policies is one of the largest factors driving rapid increases in peak and annual energy demand. 
3. Significant increases in new resource and transmission development will be required to achieve CLCPA targets. 
4. Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs) must be developed and deployed at scale well before 2040 to achieve an emission-free grid.

Ultimately, preparing for a zero-emissions electric grid by 2040, as directed by state policy, will require a variety of solutions. Examples include new transmission, significant build-out of renewable and storage resources, and the use of Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs). DEFRs will be needed to replace current fossil-fueled generators to respond quickly to changing system conditions and be able to supply the grid for extended periods. 

DEFR technologies are not yet commercially viable but must be developed and added to the system at scale to reliably serve demand when intermittent generation from wind and solar is unavailable and supply from storage resources is depleted. The lead time necessary for research, development, permitting, and construction of DEFR supply will require action well in advance of 2040 if state policy mandates under the CLCPA are to be achieved.

“We’re talking about policies and goals that are in 2040, and may feel like a long way off,” Smith said. “But we need to think about all of these factors today.”

For more, download

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