INTERVIEW: CAISO's first woman Chair on preventing future blackouts, centralized grids and the task of going 100 percent
As a part of the initial team that founded the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), Angelina Galiteva was a natural fit to join the CAISO Board of Governors in 2011, later going on to help build the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM). Now, alongside new CEO Elliot Mainzer, she was recently appointed as the new board chair, the first woman to hold the position. She sat down with New Project Media to talk about building a 100 percent renewable grid, the global and national marketplace and managing a clean energy powerhouse. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
NPM: So, how did you get involved with the ISO in the first place? What's in been like in your ten years on the board?
Angelina Galiteva: I was part of the initial team [that founded CAISO] straight out of law school, they wanted some academics because it had never been done before. I was actually part of the team that put the trust together that later evolved into the ISO, so I kept in touch with the organization. And later having worked in the utilities field with the New York Power Authority, LA Department of Water and Power and the international project of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, I was well versed into how the energy sector was evolving. So when the opportunity came with Governor Brown for new board members for the ISO, it seemed pretty ideal because I knew the industry, I knew the organization, I actually even knew some of the people that had come in early on and had stayed on and are indeed still there. So it was an opportunity for me to hit the ground running and get involved very quickly.
When I came on the board one of the objectives I had was to position the ISO as a global leader in renewable integrations. And if you look at what has transpired since I came on the board in 2011 to now, it's been a constant leap forward. We joined the international community, which hadn’t existed before, we met with other agencies and started knowledge exchange of collaboration. We joined Go15, which is a group of the largest ISO operators in the world, and currently I’m proud to say that the ISO chairs that entity, and we’ve continued to set new goals and new achievements in renewable integration.
NPM: What are you hoping to achieve in this new position? What's next for the ISO?
Angelina Galiteva: [We will] continue to collaborate with the greater west and collaborate with the governing market so that when we establish the Day-Ahead Market we’re just as successful as we were with the Western Energy Imbalance Market. And also to work more closely with the governor’s office and sister agencies like the California PUC, the California Energy Commission, the Air Resources Board as we continue the transition to a much more decarbonized energy system and indeed a decarbonized economy.
California is the fifth largest economy in the world, with very ambitious and very positive goals, including decarbonizing the transportation sector which accounts for 40 percent of greenhouse gas in California, that’s a big one for us...[Under the governor's lastest mandate to sell only zero emission EVs by 2035] those zero emissions vehicles will, to a large extent, be supported by electricity and we need to make sure that’s decarbonized. So decarbonizing the economy in terms of the building sector, the fuel sector, the transportation sector, is going to be a very unique opportunity and I look forward to working with everyone.
NPM: What's it like being the first woman to chair the organization?
Angelina Galiteva: It's important to make sure we have people who care and who are able to make sure the ISO is successful. This is one of the largest grid operators in the world, and I think it sends a positive message of inclusivity and an ability for women to be in leadership positions.
In renewable energy, and energy as a whole, I think women are natural leaders in the renewable energy space. And the energy sector has been a little bit slower to embrace women in the top leadership positions, but I was a part of the team that set up the agencies together, so for me it's particularly touching to be the first woman to actually be the chair of the board of the ISO and help set the direction.
NPM: Just this week, CAISO released a report on some of the causes of the rolling blackouts in California. What are some of the agency's plans going forward to mitigate similar issues?
Angelina Galiteva: As we transition to the more predominant renewable energy mix, we need to align our planning targets and make sure we have efficient resources lined up every hour, 24 hours a day, 360 days a year and that we’ve got sufficient resources to meet that. When the solar goes down and you have a very high ramp of about 15,000 MW for three hours daily; that need can be met reliably with renewable resources that can flexibly ramp up and meet that demand and then stay online. So we need to be looking at more resources along those lines with more flexibility, more demand energy response and more ramping capability...Also, I’m really looking forward to integrating offshore wind into the system in the very near future.
[Decarbonizing the grid] can be done. Renewables are the lowest-cost resource that we have and that’s clear across the board on an international level, we just need to make sure we’re operating them and balancing them in a way that doesn’t stress the system and doesn’t lead to unforeseen operational challenges.
We need to hone in our broadcasting as well. I always like to be able to look back and look around and make sure that we don’t have any gaps in our analysis and we don’t have blind spots to the extent that it can be avoided. 20/20 vision is always great, but being able to see it ahead of time is even better.
NPM: CAISO's biggest player is California, what's next for the state?
Angelina Galiteva: We’re going to ensure that we do remain one of the largest, the fifth largest, economies in the world, that we embrace renewables and the environmental program is not a burden but a vehicle to ensure the program’s success that leads to jobs, that leads to saving resources, including improving reliability and resiliency. As Chair of the ISO board I’m very focused on ensuring that we decarbonize in a reliable manner while we improve resiliency and operations across the board so that we can enable all of these sectors, not just the electricity but the transportation and fuel to decarbonize in an accelerated and reliable fashion while improving the economy, now that’s a challenge.
When before we were talking about 100 percent renewable energy, in 2005 or 2006, it seemed like it was not just cutting edge it was bleeding edge. I remember even talking with GreenPeace and them saying ‘Well you know, 100 percent doesn’t sound very realistic, why don’t you go to like 50 percent?’ But nobody said we should go 50 percent to the moon. It's better to have a stretch goal because otherwise you won’t even be able to achieve, even say 80 percent. But it looks now that 100 percent for the electricity sector is very achievable, that is the consensus globally, the issue is how do we do it reliably?...But California routinely has operated the grid on over 80 percent renewables, so reliably operating the grid is not the issue. Ensuring that we have the supply and the technologies to meet the ramp and the storage requirement is key. And they’re there, we just need to make sure that we plan for it and that we execute and that we don’t have blind spots.
NPM: Given its ambitious renewable energy goals, CAISO will be one of the first grid operators to manage a completely renewable grid when California meets its 100 percent goal. Do you view CAISO as an example for others? Is there anything you hope to see other states and countries adopt?
Angelina Galiteva: Decarbonizing the grid and initiatives that are happening elsewhere, not just in California-- I mean, we are leaders, of course we are leaders, but it's an international movement...I’m currently in the process of organizing a big conference in Africa, ReEnergy Africa, for the whole Africa continent. This is a situation where we can take everything we have learned and enable the whole continent and countries within the continent that are not electrified, some of them are less than 20 percent electrified, to leapfrog into renewable energy technology as a human right...they don’t have to emit the same CO2 emissions that we did. And I see that as a critical global responsibility and certainly something that grid operators can very successfully transfer knowledge.
Also, because the grid is no longer only about, I mean certainly the centralized grid is very important, but being able to have that national and geographic collaboration...It’s extremely important that we could take advantage of resources and move them around and actually ensure that we’ve got enough versatility, not just wind and solar, that we’ve got hydro, that we’ve got geothermal, we’ve got biomass and we’ve got other resources that can support it and transition to a whole other base grid that will be more valuable, more resilient, more nimble and much more optimized.
And based on that national integrated grid, you can then have subsystems that are much more distributed and diversified and decarbonized and they can island out if necessary. A whole region in there stressing the grid can island out and be self-sufficient and improve resiliency in the case of natural disaster or a public safety shutoff because the transmission line needs to be de energized because of the dangers of a fire.
So what is the future? It's decarbonized, decentralized, digitized, all of the above, and democratized.