Grid reliability and governance reforms must go hand in hand

Mireille Bejjani is the co-executive director of Slingshot and campaign facilitator at Fix the Grid.

As summer bears down on us with more intense and frequent heat waves, we again face the question of whether our electric grid can withstand peak demand. This summer, ISO New England, the organization that operates and oversees the electric grid for all six New England states, says our lights — and air conditioning — will not be interrupted. But the fact that we have to hold our breath every season for this all-important prognostication is an admission that a more profound problem is afoot.

With climate change’s urgency, now is the time for ISO New England to embrace solutions that will solve this seasonal puzzle. This begins with meaningful reforms to how the organization operates: embracing greater transparency and public input and hastening our clean energy transition 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 chief executive acknowledged that more wind and solar coming online is helping to stabilize our grid in the long run. But despite the enormous role it plays in our everyday lives, ISO New England remains far too unaccountable and opaque to ratepayers.

This insular posture has led to decades of echo-chamber thinking by its 10-member board, including a leader who has been at the helm since the 2000s and several members with strong ties to the fossil fuel industry who are re-nominated without public input .

As a result, many of ISO New England’s decisions, rules and processes have repeatedly favored fossil fuel generators to balance the strain on capacity. There’s ample evidence that oil and natural gas continuously put grid reliability at risk all year round. New England deserves a climate-resilient system and forward-thinking leadership that fully embraces the stability of renewable power and the metamorphosis required to keep us online for the long run.

ISO New England must enact 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. Likewise, the ratepayers who fund our grid’s bottom line should have more opportunities to engage in and influence our energy future.

In addition, ISO New England must ensure that its leadership and core stakeholders are accessible to everyone who wants to participate. An immediate and meaningful first step is for ISO New England’s leadership to commit to having board members regularly attend meetings of the Consumer Liaison Group, a forum of advocates, ratepayers and consumers, to better understand the needs of the communities they serve.

Lastly, ISO New England rules should stop tipping the scales in favor of oil and natural gas, which have proven volatile from a cost and delivery perspective, especially in extreme weather. Rather, our grid operator should plan for and incentivize more renewable sources. Recently, we saw the reliability of renewable energy in real-time. As our first heat wave swept the region, by ISO New England’s own admission, solar — not fossil fuels — proved critical to our grid running smoothly. Thus, by embracing more renewable power, ISO New England can simultaneously ease capacity burdens, keep the lights on and lower carbon emissions.

Pressure to embrace these reforms is ramping up, with a third of the New England US Senate delegation demanding changes to how our grid operates. In April, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey led the charge with a letter to ISO New England, calling for governance reform, better transmission planning and market fairness.

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

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI’s grid reliability and governance reforms must go hand in hand