Grid Reliability Reform and RI Management Must Go Hand in Hand

Mireille Bejjani
| Guest Columnist

Mireille Bejjani is Co-Executive Director Slingshot and campaign coordinator in Fix the mesh.

As summer hits us with increasingly intense and frequent heatwaves, we once again face the question of whether our power grid can handle peak demand. This summer, ISO New England, the organization that operates and oversees the power grid for all six New England states, says our lights — and air conditioning — will continue. But the fact that we have to hold our breath every season to hear this all-important forecast is an admission that we are dealing with a bigger problem.

Given the urgency of climate change, it is time for ISO New England to embrace solutions to this seasonal conundrum. This starts with significant reforms to how the organization operates: embracing greater transparency and public outreach, and accelerating our clean energy transformation by bringing more renewable energy sources onto the grid.

For years, advocates have been pushing ISO New England to reform its practices, and there has been some incremental progress. In 2022, it opened its board meetings to the public, and last year its CEO acknowledged that adding more wind and solar to the grid helps stabilize our grid in the long term. Yet despite the outsized role it plays in our daily lives, ISO New England remains too unaccountable and opaque to ratepayers.

This insular approach has led to decades of echo chamber thinking by the 10-person board, including the leader who has been at the helm since 2000 and several members with strong ties to the fossil fuel industry who were reappointed without consulting the public.

As a result, many of ISO New England’s decisions, policies, and processes have repeatedly favored fossil fuel generators to balance power loads. There is ample evidence that oil and natural gas continue to put grid reliability at risk year-round. New England deserves a climate-resilient system and forward-thinking leadership that fully embraces renewable energy stability and the transformation required to keep us on the grid for the long haul.

ISO New England needs to implement serious governance reforms as a first step to breaking this cycle. It should welcome a new set of diverse voices to its board, especially those with expertise and experience in environmental justice, consumer protection, and clean energy. Similarly, ratepayers who fund our grid’s bottom line should have more opportunities to engage and influence our energy future.

In addition, ISO New England must ensure that its leadership and key stakeholders are accessible to anyone who wants to participate. An immediate and significant first step is to require ISO New England leadership to regularly have board members attend meetings of the Consumer Liaison Group, a forum for advocates, ratepayers, and consumers to better understand the needs of the communities they serve.

Finally, ISO New England regulations should stop tipping the scales in favor of oil and gas, which have proven to be unstable from a cost and supply perspective, especially in extreme weather. Instead, our grid operator should plan for and encourage the use of more renewable energy sources. We recently saw the reliability of renewable energy in real time. As our first heat wave swept through the region, ISO New England, by its own admission, solar— NO fossil fuels—have proven to be critical to keeping our grid running smoothly. In this way, by adopting more renewable energy, ISO New England can simultaneously reduce power loads, keep the lights on, and lower its carbon footprint.

Pressure to pass these reforms is growing, with a third of the U.S. Senate delegation from New England demanding changes to the way our grid operates. In April, Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey led the charge, sending a letter to ISO New England calling for governance reform, better transmission planning, and market fairness.

Transparency, grid reliability, and combating the climate crisis go hand in hand. Given ISO New England’s enormous role in how our communities are served by our electric grid, it has an urgent responsibility to act on all fronts. It starts by reforming its governance, increasing opportunities for public participation, and ditching fossil fuels. Doing so can end the seasonal reliability guessing game and pave a stable path for a climate-resilient future.