Exclusive interviews with the CEOs of five regional transmission systems.
Bruce Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Exclusive interviews with CEOs at five regional independent transmission system operators: Phil Harris, at PJM; Gordon van Welie, at ISO New England; Yakout Monsour, at the California ISO; Graham Edwards, at MISO; and Mark Lynch, at the New York ISO; • Grid Congestion • Price Volatility • ICAP/LICAP • Climate Change • Market Monitoring • Internal Governance • Geographic Expansion
Phillip G. Harris
President and CEO, PJM Interconnection LLC
Fortnightly: We read that congestion is growing. Is that true, and if so, is it a bad thing?
Harris: No. Congestion has nothing to do with markets. Congestion has always been there on the electrical system. What we’ve been able to do is provide transparency: information transparency and price transparency about congestion. Once you provide the information and the price transparency, then you are allowing market forces to relieve that, because now you can price it. If you can’t provide the pricing and the information transparency, then you’re leaving everything up to the black box of the utility—for that local utility to optimize their own resources—which may not be in the public interest.
Fortnightly: Is it enough to provide information for market participants to rationalize congestion in a monetary form?