RTO Insider

March 30, 2026

IESO’s Long Lead-Time Procurement Faces Potential Delay

IESO’s Long Lead-Time (LLT) procurement may be delayed beyond its planned April launch because the ISO is still awaiting a directive from the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Mines.

ISO officials announced the potential delay in an engagement session March 26, where they also shared refinements to their buy-local incentives.

The LLT procurement is intended for resources that require longer planning cycles than the four-year lead times in the pending Long-Term 2 (LT2) procurement. IESO plans to seek 600 to 800 MW of capacity from storage resources and up to 1 TWh of energy from hydro resources requiring at least five years of lead time.

“While we were expecting to get our directive to launch the LLT [request for proposals] by the end of this month, we no longer expect that to be the case,” IESO’s Ben Weir said. “Government is continuing to take some time to finalize the [supply chain] policy that’s going to be applicable to this procurement. … There is still hope that the end of April launch timeline does not get impacted by this … but that timeline has been put into question.”

At issue are the government’s rules for incentivizing respondents to use Canadian construction materials and labor. The ISO said previously that developers who commit to sourcing 75% of materials and construction services from Canadian suppliers would receive a 2% reduction in their “evaluated” price. (See IESO Expands Hydro Eligibility in Long Lead-Time Procurement.)

But in its March 26 presentation, IESO revised the incentive to a sliding scale, ranging from a 1% price reduction for using 60 to 70% Canadian supplies, to a 3% reduction for a 100% Canadian commitment.

If a supplier cannot prove they met their committed percentage, they will be subject to up to $5 million in liquidated damages, with higher damages for those falling more than 5 percentage points below their commitment.

Michael Killeavy of Power Advisory questioned the rationale behind the damages, asking, “If there’s a shortfall in Canadian content, how is the ISO actually damaged?”

Weir said the ISO wants a disincentive for suppliers who fail to honor their pledge to use a high percentage of Canadian supplies. “They shouldn’t have been awarded [a reduction in their evaluated price],” he said.

Reserve Price

IESO’s Jasdeep Kahlon again defended the ISO’s plan to use Window 1 of the LT2 procurement as the baseline for the LLT reserve price — a confidential price threshold to ensure the ISO doesn’t pay too much.

The price will be adjusted for inflation to account for the later commercial operation dates for long lead-time projects. IESO also will consider the cost of new entry at Year 21 of the 40-year contract term.

Kahlon said some stakeholders are concerned that the resources procured through LT2 are not comparable to those in the LLT procurement.

“While the ISO is taking this into consideration, I do want to clarify that the reserve price is intended to be … a price ceiling and reflect the ISO’s willingness to pay for LLT energy and capacity resources,” he said. “The ISO is not attempting to set a target or a forecasted price.”

Suppliers who promise a high percentage of Canadian labor and supplies will receive a reduction in their “evaluated” price, ranging from 1% for using 60 to 70% Canadian supplies to a 3% reduction for a 100% Canadian commitment. | IESO

In addition to the CONE baseline cost at Year 21, Kahlon said the ISO will consider the value of other attributes, “including supply diversity and system reliability benefits, longer asset lifetimes, the duration and flexibility that these projects bring” in addition to the domestic sourcing considerations that weren’t required for LT2 Window 1.

“I think a lot of the [stakeholder] concern may stem from maybe a lack of confidence that the ISO is going to correctly value these additional attributes,” he said. “So, this is where I’m … strongly encouraging stakeholders to submit any supporting materials, reports, modeling, analysis — whatever stakeholders believe would help the ISO correctly value these attributes.”

Early Delivery Concession

In response to stakeholder concerns, IESO agreed to relax conditions for its consent for a COD earlier than specified in the contract.

Stakeholders expressed concern that IESO’s veto power over an early COD could undermine the ability to finance projects, saying a project that is financially viable with a six-year lead time may not remain viable with a seven-year lead time.

IESO said it will update the LLT contracts to specify that consent for an early COD “shall not unreasonably be withheld.”

Timelines

The ISO also agreed to extend the RFP’s proposal submission deadline to Nov. 26. Some stakeholders had requested a deadline at the end of December.

Patrick Gillette, of consulting firm CRD Energy, said the November deadline “is somewhat problematic, especially for the greenfield sites that the Ministry of Natural Resources is going to be releasing.”

Gillette said the extended deadline will be helpful for “more mature sites,” but “it’s going [to be] very difficult to convince anybody to put any money into a process where you have the risk of the Ministry of Natural Resources needing to confirm the site is going to be put out there; that you’ve got to do a bunch of technical work in the field, and you’re working on something that normally takes a year, and the timelines have been shrunk down to seven eight months,” he said. “The risk you’re running here is that the really good sites that don’t have as much work done on them won’t be submitted.”

Weir said the deadline could be delayed if the procurement is not launched by the end of April, but he added, “You’re not going to get a year.

“We are balancing here a number of different procurements that have different timelines; that … need resources to be in service to meet needs that show up at different times,” he said. “And there is … only so long that we can push back an LLT proposal submission and still get contracts awarded.”

Next Steps

The ISO plans to post updated drafts of the RFPs, contracts and pre-deliverability test intake forms on April 1, and the deliverability testing methodology by mid-April.

It asked for feedback on the latest engagement by April 15 at engagement@ieso.ca.

March 30, 2026

From Weeks to Minutes: AI’s Potential to Replace Utility Planning and Operational Processes

TORONTO — Generating power flow analyses in minutes that formerly took weeks. Using high-resolution weather data to create probabilistic operational plans. Running a million Monte Carlo scenarios to compare potential grid upgrades.

All that is now possible with artificial intelligence, and it will replace most traditional utility planning and operational processes within a decade, says Josh Wong, CEO of ThinkLabs AI.

To submit a commentary on this topic, email forum@rtoinsider.com.

With aging infrastructure and increasing congestion, AI is needed to solve problems that are “orders of magnitude more complex” than what the grid faced 20 years ago, Wong told the Ontario Electricity Distributors Association’s ENERCOM 2026 conference March 23.

“For the past decade, we have been looking at just a corner, a small subset of the [grid], and trying to solve it with, I would say, brute force,” Wong said, citing transmission cluster studies that can cost $250,000 each and take six to 10 months to complete. “We always run studies independently, ad hoc, reactively and repeatedly, and it takes months, and it takes a lot of time, resources, and manpower and budget.”

Josh Wong, CEO of ThinkLabs AI | © RTO Insider

When Wong was at Toronto Hydro, the utility studied each distribution feeder once every three years. In contrast, AI can continuously update its analysis of the grid the way Google Maps updates travel directions in response to changing traffic patterns.

“So now we have a real-time … copilot sitting in your control room, analyzing every feeder, every single few seconds to look at issues” and recommend fixes, Wong said. “Should you expand this line? Should you add a battery? Should you switch? Should you put a demand response or flexibility contract?”

Wong’s goal: AI running grid operations on “autopilot” with human override.

Wong said his company is working with MISO on how to introduce AI into the control room. “We are teaching AI agents to actually become training simulators to train generation operators,” he said.

The grid is so complex that the “human loop” will always be needed, Wong acknowledged. “But we are fundamentally up leveling the job of the planner [and] the operator from really mundane tasks by giving solutions.”

AI ‘Skunkworks’

Wong turned to AI after founding Opus One, which became a leading distributed energy resource management system, during the first generation of smart grid and smart metering. “I realized that the core of the smart grid, or grid intelligence, is the intelligence piece,” he explained. “It’s not the next gadget, the widget, the piece of hardware, meter, battery, etc.”

After selling Opus One to GE — now GE Vernova — Wong became restless to start something new. He began an AI skunkworks within GE, which in 2024 spun out ThinkLabs.

Last year, ThinkLabs teamed with Southern California Edison to build “physics-informed” AI digital twins to address SCE’s load growth, which the utility says will require it to add seven new distribution circuits each year for the next decade.

“They need to process up to 10,000 energization requests each month. Currently … each interconnection and load request takes 30 to 45 days,” he said. “How many … resources and planners do you need to make that happen?”

To help utilities maximize their existing infrastructure, Wong said, AI can enable a shift from worst-case scenario analyses to time series analyses of all 8,760 hours in a year.

Using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, “we trained sub-transmission AI models. We trained distribution AI models. We had them co-simulate [transmission] and [distribution],” Wong said. “We added all the interconnections. We played it out based on their [interconnection] queue. We found all the thermal violations [and] voltage violations.”

It did not take 30 to 45 days. “We did it for the entire system in two-and-a-quarter minutes,” he said. “So now the joke is: Grab coffee, come back and you can connect.”

NIVIDIA Earth-2

ThinkLabs also is using Nividia’s Earth-2’s weather data to create probabilistic load and solar generation forecasts at a one-kilometer radius.

The output “doesn’t give you one future, it gives you a probability of futures,” he said. “Now, with the right horsepower and the AI models, we can finally get into probabilistic operational planning” that ensures operators are making the right decisions.

“Now, when I do that switching, when I dispatch that battery, I have confidence whether I’m actually solving the problem or not,” he said. “So, this is what high-performance compute gives you: really going from worst-case analysis and hope for the best — ‘spray and pray,’ overbuild — to really be very surgical in how we analyze the system and be very confident in our actions.”

Capital Planning, Power Restoration

ThinkLabs is feeding AI decades of log data from advanced meters and SCADA systems to allow it to help with root cause analyses.

Wong also sees AI taking a major role in capital budgets, allowing planners to run Monte Carlo simulations of alternative grid upgrades.

“I can run … a million scenarios in 10 minutes,” he said. “So can we go to a regulator and say, … ‘We have studied a million scenarios and … the data shows us that this is the most prudent investment.’”

Wong believes AI also can help utilities recover from storm-related outages by matching equipment and crews with tasks and developing key performance indicators affecting estimated time to restoration. “ETRs are a very wild guess these days,” he said.

Moore’s Law — the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years with minimal cost increase — applies to grid AI, Wong said. That means that costs will drop and AI insights will be available to small local distribution companies, not just large utilities.

“This is no longer a pipe dream,” he said. “The future is now.”

March 30, 2026

GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Increase BPA Administrator Salary

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill to increase the salary for the head of the Bonneville Power Administration to make the position more competitive and attractive as the agency searches for its next leader.

Reps. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.), Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) introduced the Bonneville Power Leadership Recruitment Act (H.R. 8132), which would allow the energy secretary to set the BPA administrator’s salary and make it competitive with other executives in the energy industry, according to a March 27 news release.

The bill comes after outgoing Administrator John Hairston announced his exit from the agency to join the Eugene Water & Electric Board. The Department of Energy posted the job opening March 2 on USAJobs.gov, a government website for federal job opportunities. The annual salary range is between $199,172 and $228,000. (See Hairston to Retire from BPA, Poised to Join EWEB.)

With the bill, the lawmakers hope to attract qualified candidates, noting the agency operates nearly 75% of high-voltage transmission in the Northwest and supplies almost four million people with power.

“We citizens of the Northwest cannot afford a BPA administrator who lacks deep experience, proven leadership capability, strategic vision, and an understanding of the incredible value of the BPA to many of us in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern California and even a part of Wyoming,” Bentz said in a statement.

The bill would require the secretary of energy to set the salary at a level comparable to a CEO of consumer-owned utilities in the Western Interconnection.

It would also apply market-based compensation standards to other BPA employees, mandate the use of annual compensation surveys to ensure pay remains competitive, ensure compensation is consistent with BPA’s budget and mission, and emphasize the need for experienced leadership, according to the news release.

Former BPA Administrator Randy Hardy previously criticized the salary and reiterated those concerns in a March 30 interview with RTO Insider. (See BPA Job Posting Spurs Questions About Search for New Administrator.)

“The BPA administrator is probably the most grossly underpaid official in the entire federal government,” Hardy said.

He said the salary should be at least “double” the range in the job posting. Executives of other utilities in the region can make up to $500,000 a year, while the BPA administrator, who has “three or four times the degree of responsibility … is making less than half of that,” according to Hardy.

The deadline to apply for the role was recently extended through March 30, expanding the application window from two to four weeks.

It is no accident, according to Hardy.

“They can’t find anybody who’s willing to take that low salary who’s qualified,” he said. “It’s a huge problem and it needs to be fixed.”

A BPA spokesperson said the agency typically does not comment on legislation.

March 30, 2026

Georgia Power to Pay $175K in NERC Penalties

Georgia Power will pay $175,000 to SERC Reliability for violating NERC’s reliability standards, according to a settlement between the utility and the regional entity approved by FERC March 27 (NP26-6).

NERC filed the settlement with the commission Feb. 26 in its monthly spreadsheet notice of penalty, along with a separate notice of penalty and SNOP regarding violations of NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection standards. Details of those settlements, including the REs and utilities involved, were not made public in accordance with NERC and FERC policies regarding CIP violations as critical energy/electric infrastructure information (NP26-5).

Georgia Power settled with SERC over a violation of PRC-023-6 (Transmission relay loadability). The utility reported the infringement in June 2024, according to the settlement, but it began July 1, 2010.

Requirement R1 of PRC-023-6 sets criteria to “prevent [their] circuit terminals’ phase protective relay settings from limiting transmission system loadability while maintaining reliable protection of the [grid] for all fault conditions.” Transmission owners, generator owners and distribution providers are required to apply one of 13 criteria provided to their transmission line relays.

Georgia Power notified SERC that on Dec. 19, 2023, it discovered two 230-kV line relays at the Wiregrass substation — energized four days earlier — did not meet any of the criteria in the standard. The utility did use one of the criteria, which specified that transmission line relays must not operate at or below 150% of a circuit’s highest seasonal facility rating, but the relays in question were found to be set “in the range of 140-150% … of the highest seasonal rating.”

The contract settings engineer for the project had calculated settings that would comply with both the standard and Georgia Power’s internal requirements, but a quality assurance engineer modified the settings in a way that still would comply with PRC-023-6 but not with the company’s requirements. An oversight engineer reviewed the settings and requested changes that would have ensured compliance with both, but these revisions were not fully implemented, and the relay remained noncompliant with the standard.

Georgia Power brought the Wiregrass substation’s relays back into compliance by Dec. 20, 2023. The utility also performed an extent of condition assessment on all 1,331 relays to which the R1 criteria apply and found four more substations with incorrect settings:

- North Tifton — An element of the switch-on-fault scheme was set to 136% of the highest seasonal rating instead of 150%. The noncompliance began when PRC-023-1 (the predecessor to PRC-023-6) took effect in July 2010 and ended July 30, 2024, when the element was removed from the SOTF.
- Bowen — Like North Tifton, an element on the SOTF was set to 111% of the highest seasonal rating instead of 150%. The instance began Oct. 21, 2022, when Georgia Power modified the settings, and ended July 30, 2024, when the utility removed the element from the SOTF.
- Ohara and Thompson Primary substations — Each substation had a relay on a 500-kV line with phase distance reach set below the highest seasonal rating because of incorrectly implemented load encroachment logic. The Ohara infringement began July 1, 2010, when PRC-023-1 became effective and the Thompson Primary infringement on Nov. 18, 2021. Both ended in September 2024 when Georgia Power changed the relay setting.

SERC identified the cause of the Wiregrass violation as ineffective controls. The RE wrote that Georgia Power “had an unknown limitation in [its] work management tool program” that prevented automated emails that would have informed the PRC-023 coordinator on the project of the settings change. The procedure for issuing settings also did not provide any guidance on when settings changes are needed after settings for active projects already have been transmitted to the field.

For the other four instances, SERC determined the cause to be ineffective training as related to non-standard relays. The RE observed that all the violations “involved situations that are not present in most of the system and therefore represent unfamiliar situations that engineers may not have seen before during their careers.”

SERC wrote that of the relays on Georgia Power’s system to which PRC-023-6 applies, only 52 use the overcurrent elements used at Bowen and North Tifton, and 50 use the relays found in Ohara and Thompson Primary. As a result, SERC suggested “engineers made assumptions” about how to approach these situations that turned out to be incorrect. The RE determined the violation — counting all the instances together — posed a moderate risk to grid reliability, observing that “no harm is known to have occurred” because of the infringement.

To mitigate the violation, Georgia Power implemented corrected settings at all the identified noncompliant substations. The utility also developed new procedures for making settings changes after settings are transmitted. The utility communicated to compliance-related personnel the importance of notifying the compliance department as soon as possible after finding a potential noncompliance. It also conducted training on the unusual situations found in the extent of condition review.

Finally, Georgia Power implemented a new tool to check database line relay settings against the PRC-023-6 R1 criteria. The utility plans to use the tool to check settings prior to field implementation, and for periodic checks after installation.

March 30, 2026

MISO Details Pricing Issues, Slow Market Solves During Winter Max Gen Emergency

NEW ORLEANS — MISO’s maximum generation emergency event during a harsh winter featured under-forecast demand, issues with pricing software and day-ahead models so bogged down by complexity that they took longer to solve.

The grid operator reviewed the Jan. 23-27 winter storm during its quarterly Board Week meetup. Executive Director of System Operations J.T. Smith said the 2026 winter storm shared characteristics with the February 2021 storm.

Despite calling for maximum generation emergency procedures Jan. 24, MISO hit a 105-GW wintertime peak Jan. 27, on the final day of the storm. It eclipsed MISO’s 103-GW peak demand prediction ahead of the season. (See MISO: Gen Performance Lacking During January Winter Storm.)

Smith said MISO took the step of lodging its control room operators in Carmel, Ind., and Little Rock, Ark., in nearby hotels to make sure they would physically make it to headquarters for their shifts during the emergency.

Smith said that before the storm, MISO appeared to have ample reserves. But on the evening of Jan. 23, resources started to encounter performance issues and become inaccessible.

“We had an expectation that offline resources would be available,” Smith said during a March 24 meeting of Markets Committee of the MISO Board of Directors.

Load ultimately turned up about 3 GW higher across the Midwest region than MISO originally forecast for the Jan. 23 evening peak, Smith said.

MISO also said day-ahead offers from its members were lower than its expected need during the emergency.

“MISO under-forecasted the situation, but it also looks like our members under-forecasted the situation,” Smith said.

Smith said outages, offers that didn’t reflect true generation availability and higher load plagued the RTO. Compounding matters, MISO’s inability to publish locational marginal pricing was “not incentivizing the market to respond correctly to the situation,” Smith added.

MISO said its pricing issue “muted market response.” Because of software issues, it was unable to publish ex-post locational marginal prices for about 13 hours on Jan. 24. The Independent Market Monitor said the situation “exacerbated the emergency conditions.”

Carrie Milton, of the IMM staff, said the absence of market signals is “truly a testament” to the role the markets play during extreme weather conditions.

Milton said oil wellhead freeze-offs during the winter storm made it impossible for some MISO gas resources to get “gas at any price.” Natural gas pipeline interconnection Henry Hub traded at an all-time high of $30/MMBtu on Jan. 23.

Milton also said MISO’s emergency pricing seeped outside of the emergency in the Midwest to affect MISO South. She said emergency pricing raised prices to nearly $1,200/MWh in some parts of the South because of MISO’s regional directional transfer limit, which limits price separation between the regions to $700/MWh.

MISO accrued $16 million of day-ahead margin assistance payments to generators in the Midwest on Jan. 24, in addition to another $16 million of day-ahead margin assistance payments to generators in the South, Milton reported.

Southern Renewable Energy Association’s Simon Mahan said MISO’s inability to access the South’s generation highlights a need for it to focus on beefing up transmission links between its Midwest and South regions so the RTO can truly tap into its geographic diversity that proves helpful during system stress.

MISO’s day-ahead market model cleared slowly “for a number of days that week,” Smith continued.

MISO CEO John Bear said multiple grid operators experienced sluggish day-ahead modeling during the storm.

MISO was forced to make about 3 GW of emergency purchases from PJM on the morning of Jan. 24 and again in the evening. Smith said surplus generation in MISO South was trapped behind the Midwest-South constraint, requiring generators to stand down and driving up uplift payments.

The Monitor said just 67% of the 7.7 GW of load-modifying resources that cleared MISO’s capacity market in the Midwest for the winter season were available during the emergency event.

Milton said the IMM recommends MISO schedule load-modifying resources with longer lead times when it can tell that demand curtailments likely will be needed.

Milton said the RTO’s congestion was valued at more than $925 million during the winter, in part because of the winter storm, higher gas prices and renewable resources worsening transmission constraints.

MISO Director Robert Lurie asked if energy storage resources would have helped MISO ride out the storm more smoothly.

Smith said during extreme winter conditions, MISO often finds itself “work[ing] around” 30-minute lead gas units that encounter fuel issues.

“We live within the world of the fleet that’s given to us. There might be some opportunities there,” Smith said of battery storage.

But IMM David Patton said storage benefits would fade within a few hours in an extended cold spell.

“They can help a little bit, but they quickly lose their ability to help the system,” Patton said.

Smith said MISO’s machine-learning risk predictor was able to foresee 34% of the RTO’s 29 high-risk days over winter, better than its performance over the fall, when it failed to call any of the six high-risk days. (See MISO Usage, Outages Up in Fall 2025.)

“Better than zero, but still not great,” Smith said.

MISO also set separate peak renewable energy records for wind at 27 GW on Jan. 13 and solar at 16.5 GW on Feb. 27.

March 30, 2026

DOE Extends 202(c) Order for Craig Plant Days Before it Joins SPP RTO West

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued a second emergency order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep Unit 1 at the Craig coal plant in Colorado running for another three months until June 28.

The first order keeping the coal plant operating was issued Dec. 30 and is being challenged in court. (See Petitions Filed to Overturn DOE’s Craig Coal Plant Extension.)

“The last administration’s energy subtraction policies threatened America’s energy security and positioned our nation to likely experience significantly more blackouts in the coming years — thankfully, President Trump won’t let that happen,” Wright said in a statement March 30. “The Trump administration will continue taking action to ensure we don’t lose critical generation sources. Americans deserve access to affordable, reliable and secure energy to power their homes all the time, regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.”

Craig Unit 1 is operated by Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and co-owned by it, PacifiCorp, Platt River Power Authority, Salt River Project and Xcel’s Public Service Company of Colorado.

Tri-State and the Western Area Power Administration Rocky Mountain Region are joining SPP as part of its RTO West expansion effective April 1, so the order directs the grid operator to use economic dispatch for the plant and to minimize ratepayer costs.

The 446.4-MW Craig Unit 1 started operations in 1980 and was poised to cease operations in December. DOE released a resource adequacy report last year arguing power plant retirements should stop considering rising demand and the agency noted that 17 GW of coal generation stayed open in 2025.

The Craig extension came a week after DOE extended emergency orders for CenterPoint and MISO to keep the F.B. Culley Generating Station open and for NIPSCO and MISO to keep the Schahfer Generating Station running. Both plants are located Indiana.

The coal plants were slated to retire in December and now are being kept open another 90 days. DOE reported that both ran during a major cold snap from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1. The Indiana plants’ 202(c) orders also are being challenged in court. (See Groups Contest Indiana Coal Plants’ Emergency Extensions at D.C. Circuit.)

In other cases, such as the legal challenge to the Campbell power plant 202(c) orders, appeals have been filed for every order. But the court has held them in abeyance and moved forward with the appeal of the first order issued for a plant.

DOE issued its first 202(c) order to block a planned retirement at the Campbell plant in Michigan in May 2025 and that case is the farthest along, with the department filing its first brief recently. Final briefs are due this April, and oral arguments are scheduled for May 15. (See DOE Defends Use of Emergency Orders in Court Filing.)

March 30, 2026

Texas PUC to Survey Large Loads’ Water Use

Texas regulators are launching a survey of water use by data centers and crypto miners to address concerns about whether the state is prepared for the potential demand from the large loads’ needs to cool servers and generate electricity.

The survey will be open April 2 through May 28. Public Utility Commission staff have worked with the state Water Development Board (WDB) and industry associations to develop and distribute the survey.

“The whole overall objective here for the data centers … that are either continuing to operate today or are thinking about coming to Texas, is to make sure that everybody has the water that they need,” Commissioner Kathleen Jackson said during the March 26 open meeting. “This is useful information that will help in the planning process and the future build out of additional water infrastructure.”

The Texas Legislature directed the Public Utility Commission to conduct the survey by adding a rider in the 2026/27 state budget. It instructs the commission to focus on industries whose energy demands have an “inverse relationship with their water usage.”

PUC staff will share the survey’s results with WDB and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for their own planning and demand purposes. Staff also must deliver a report to the legislature by the end of 2026.

State Rep. Armando Walle (D), who wrote the rider, said the survey is a “critical early step” in the state’s approach to water needs.

“We must find ways to meet the existing data gaps in our state and regional water planning process to ensure local governments — and these businesses themselves — can make informed decisions based on what resources are available, and will be available going into the future,” he said in a statement.

The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) said the state is home to 464 data centers and that it expected their water use to continue to rise, according to a report released in January. The center estimated that Texas uses 8 billion gallons of water each year, based on data center energy forecasts. HARC said an additional 70 sites are under development.

ESRs Separated from DRRS Development

The commission accepted staff’s recommendation to separate energy storage resources from ERCOT’s development of Dispatchable Reliability Reserve Service (DRRS) through a protocol change (NPRR1309), avoiding delays in implementing the product’s core functionality (55797).

Chair Thomas Gleeson said that while he believes ESRs should be able to access DRRS revenues, batteries’ “unique issues” would best be handled in a separate protocol change. He said ERCOT staff have told him decisions made in the second change could be rolled into DRRS’ first run.

“Because we can do it on the same timeline, it’s not going to delay DRRS, and battery inclusion in DRRS will not be delayed,” Gleeson said. “I’m comfortable with the recommendation that we separate this out.”

A 2023 law requires ERCOT to develop DRRS as an ancillary service and establish minimum requirements for the product:

- reducing the amount of reliability unit commitment by the amount of DRRS procured; and
- eligible resources capable of running for at least four hours and being dispatchable not more than two hours after being deployed.

NPRR1309 meets all statutory criteria and improves an earlier version by allowing online resources to participate in DRRS. The product will be awarded in real time and co-optimize (RTC) its procurement with that of energy and other ancillary services under RTC. The change has been granted urgent status and is due before the board for its June meeting.

The PUC also adopted a rule change for net-metering arrangements between a large load customer and an existing generation resource. The new rule establishes the criteria for ERCOT’s study of the arrangements and sets the procedural steps for completion within 120 days (58479).

The commission will have 60 days to deny or approve a net metering arrangement once ERCOT files its study results and recommendation to the agency.

March 30, 2026March 30, 2026

ROWE Close to Finalizing Board Selection Process

The West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee is finalizing role specifications for the initial board members of the Regional Organization for Western Energy (ROWE) as it prepares to evaluate candidates.

Lyceum Leadership Consulting, the search firm in charge of vetting candidates for ROWE’s board, has interviewed stakeholders to gather input on the role specifications for the initial five board positions that will be seated in 2026, Kathleen Staks, Launch Committee co-chair and ROWE interim president, said during a Pathways meeting March 27.

After the Pathways Initiative’s nine sectors provide input on the role specifications and search strategy in April, “we will kick off our board member search,” Staks said.

“This is the point at which we will be taking nominations, and the search firm will be starting their evaluation of various candidates and working through the nominating committee to evaluate those candidates and narrow it down to a slate of five,” Staks added.

Jim Shetler, general manager of the Balancing Authority of Northern California, provided an update on ROWE funding.

Shetler anticipates ROWE will raise roughly $1.1 million through stakeholder contributions and grants, “which should get us through mid- to third quarter of this year,” he said.

Shetler noted that CAISO has begun a stakeholder process to examine whether to approve an $8.5 million financing plan to fund ROWE’s start-up costs. He said ROWE and CAISO are discussing with “various banks” about what a loan structure might look like and are narrowing down alternatives. (See ‘Widespread Support’ for CAISO’s $8.5M ROWE Funding Plan.)

Meanwhile, the Pathways group working on developing ROWE’s Office of Public Participation has met with its counterpart at FERC to discuss best practices, Staks noted.

She added that the same work group has begun focusing on tribal engagement.

“We are doing some outreach and some work to figure out how the ROWE can get set up with a meaningful way for engaging with tribes and the various interests that they have as well,” Staks said.

The next Pathways meeting is scheduled for April 24.

March 29, 2026

IESO Chief Seeks Improved ‘Alignment’ with Electric Distributors

TORONTO — Local distribution companies and bulk transmission system operators need to improve their alignment as LDCs transition from passive roles overseeing poles and wires, IESO CEO Lesley Gallinger told attendees of the Ontario Electricity Distributors Association’s ENERCOM 2026 conference March 23.

“I think the role that LDCs are taking on is becoming much more pivotal to future reliability and affordability conversations,” Gallinger said during a Q&A session with Elexicon CEO Amanda Klein. “The LDCs are front-running the adoption of emerging technologies like electric vehicles and heat pumps, and that’s useful information [for] the bulk system. And the work that LDCs have done to integrate [distributed energy resources] through their distribution systems is also … helpful from a technical perspective.”

LDCs and IESO need to improve their alignment on regional planning, forecast assumptions and operational practices, Gallinger said, citing a need for real-time distribution data.

“You have never been asked to do more than today,” Minister of Energy and Mines Stephen Lecce told the distributors in a lunchtime speech. “There has never been more constraints and pressure on the electricity system. You’re doing something right. You guys work together. You’re thinking ahead. You’re de-risking. You’re collaborating. You’re trying something new. You’re being bold. You’re challenging the status quo.”

Ontario and the federal government are making big bets on nuclear power, pledging to build 16,000 MW of new generation, including four small modular nuclear reactors and up to 4,800 MW of additional capacity at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. (See Ontario Integrated Energy Plan Boosts Gas, Nukes.)

Energy ‘Quadrilemma’

The passage of Bill 40, which made economic development part of the mission for IESO and the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), has turned the traditional energy trilemma — the balance of reliability, affordability and sustainability — into a “quadrilemma,” Gallinger said.

“The challenge lies in the fact that all four dimensions are interconnected. If you prioritize [an] outcome for one of the dimensions, you lose perhaps something on one of the other dimensions,” she said.

“Economic policy and energy policy are now inextricably linked. And so that leaves us kind of a narrow band for error,” she said. “We’re moving now to continuously and proactively plan. So rather than the five-year ‘set it and forget it’ model, we’re continuing to intake new information and … iterate on those plans. And that will allow us to stay adaptable and responsive to those evolving circumstances and hopefully help us get the quadrilemma equation right.”

Mark Olsheski, vice president of energy at Sussex Strategy, said increasing distribution-based generation will be crucial to navigating the next decade, before new nuclear capacity goes into service.

“We have well over 2,000 MW of embedded solar in Ontario, most of which is coming to the end of its contract. … There’s right now not … a clear plan for how that solar gets renewed,” he said during a panel discussion.

“This is just what’s already on rooftops and in fields at the distribution level. But I think that we need to deploy significant resources currently not [planned] within this window, that don’t involve big procurements for large gas or storage assets. The greatest opportunity to do that … is going to be at the distribution level.”

He cited the importance of the OEB’s Centralized Capacity Information Map, released in January, which provides data for both load and DER connections. “There are big swaths of the province that are pretty red — like you can’t really plug in a toaster oven without something blowing up. So certainly, there’s a lot of work that needs to be” done.

March 29, 2026March 30, 2026

U.S.-Canada Trade Relations Dominate Distributors’ Conference

TORONTO — Canada should expect turbulent relations with the U.S. to continue under the Trump administration, speakers said at the Ontario Electricity Distributors Association’s ENERCOM 2026 conference.

In 2020, President Donald Trump hailed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, as the “largest, fairest, most balanced” trade deal in history. But as the agreement comes up for review in July, its renewal is anything but certain.

With “President Trump, anything is possible,” former diplomat Gitane De Silva said at the conference March 23. “I think we have to prepare for any outcome.”

The most likely outcome is that Canada and the U.S. will fail to extend the agreement, triggering annual reviews until a new pact can be reached, said De Silva, former CEO of the Canada Energy Regulator, which oversees international and interprovincial pipelines and electric transmission.

“It’s not to President Trump’s perceived advantage to get to ‘yes,’ because he likes the chaos. He likes uncertainty. He feels that makes him more powerful,” De Silva said. “So, I think we just have to become accustomed to the fact that that trading relationship is not going to be as stable as it was” before Trump.

Jeff Rubin, former chief economist of CIBC World Markets, was more blunt about prospects for the agreement, known as CUSMA in Canada.

“Prime Minister [Mark] Carney pretends that other than a few little tweaks, CUSMA will be renewed. CUSMA is a dead man walking. There is a 0% chance of President Trump renewing CUSMA,” Rubin said. “Whatever bilateral agreement [that is developed] will involve U.S. tariffs on Canadian exports.”

Already, Rubin said, car manufacturers are relocating operations in the U.S.

Rubin said it was President Joe Biden who began undermining the World Trade Organization and the global trading system with his “pervasive use of sanctions and tariffs.”

“But whereas Biden’s policy of friendshoring targeted America’s enemies — China and Russia — Trump’s policy of reciprocal tariffs makes no distinction between friend and foe. And, as Canadians have discovered to their horror, Canada is as much a target of economic warfare as is America’s enemies … perhaps in some sense even more so.”

De Silva said Canada will have some leverage in the negotiations because of the U.S. need for Canada’s heavy oil and fertilizers.

But Rubin said Canada — with the third-largest oil reserves and fifth-largest natural gas reserves in the world — has failed to maximize its resources.

“Prime Minister Carney often refers to Canada as an energy superpower. … But what Prime Minister Carney does not seem to recognize is it takes more than natural endowments to be an energy superpower,” he said. “Real energy superpowers like the United States and Russia do whatever is necessary to get the energy out of the ground and get it to markets that value it the most.

“While Canada’s geology has bestowed upon it considerable resources, the country has consistently lacked the political will to develop. That is why Canada’s oil production is less than half of Russia and Saudi Arabia and a third of America, and what Canada does produce is way below prices that other oil exporters get for their product.”

Alberta Tie Line, Secession Vote

De Silva said that in addition to considering dairy, poultry, eggs, automobiles and lumber trade, U.S. negotiators may also seek to resolve a dispute over the Montana-Alberta Tie Line.

In 2024, Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) Canada, owner of the intertie, filed a complaint with the Alberta Utilities Commission alleging that the Alberta Electric System Operator’s restriction of imports was discriminatory and jeopardizing renewable power investment in Montana. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer raised the issue with the Senate Finance Committee during a presentation on CUSMA in December.

Alberta has denied discriminating against the U.S., saying it is merely managing grid congestion and protecting reliability. It says BHE’s complaint is an effort to increase its earnings from the merchant intertie facility.

De Silva noted that Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) is a close ally of Trump. “Given that, I think the potential is that it rises higher on the list of irritants than something of this magnitude normally would,” she said.

Rubin said he expects Trump to attempt to influence an October referendum on whether Alberta should leave Canada. “I’m sure he’s prepared to offer Alberta statehood and throw in the Keystone XL pipeline as a sweetener,” Rubin said.

Benefits of Gridlock

Democrats could seek to restrain Trump if they win back at least one house of Congress in this year’s midterm elections, De Silva said.

“It’s actually an advantage for Canada to see that power be split,” she said. “So, it will become more dysfunctional for Americans … but in a way, that gridlock — dragging the puck — might be beneficial at this point in time.”

The long-term fate of U.S.-Canada relations will depend on who succeeds Trump as president, she said.

“The studies will show you that when you break trust, it takes at least twice as long to build it back than it did the first time,” she said. “We don’t have to like the Americans, but we’re going to be neighbors forever.”

‘Island of Stability’

Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s minister of Energy and Mines, highlighted Canadian leaders’ cooperative response to U.S. pressures, saying he wants Carney to succeed even though they are in different parties.

“This country is an island of stability in a sea of chaos,” Lecce said. “We’re working with the federal government in good faith on these matters, because in this moment, frankly, we’re on the same team. … You don’t hear [that] when I’m traveling the world. I will tell you, many of these subnational and national governments of different parties, they’re not on the same page. … That’s a Canadian value and something I’m proud of.”