CAISO Cuts Staff by 20 Percent

The California Independent System Operator committed to a 20 percent staff reduction and an initial 14 percent decrease in its grid management charge. The grid operator's control room staff—the people who handle potential supply shortages—will not be affected, according to statements by executives July 13. "The organization's maturing," Yakout Mansour, CAISO chief executive officer, explained. It's reducing its management-to-staff ratio by half as part of the reorganization. Total staff will decline from 612 positions—some of which are currently unfilled—to 517. Grid and market operations are being brought together under a single department headed by Jim Detmers, vice-president of operations. Transmission planning will be under Armando Perez, who has the new title of vice-president of planning and infrastructure development. This will decrease the cost to participants from 85 cents/MWh this year to 73 cents/MWh beginning January 1, 2006, said Mansour. As the organization pays off its debt over the next four years, it plans to reduce the charge another 15 percent by 2010. New Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chair Joe Kelliher sent his approval of the move. He wants to counter arguments that the costs of regional transmission organizations are too high. In other CAISO news, there was another market redesign "stakeholder marathon," as CAISO principal market design architect Lorenzo Kristov called it, on June 13-14. Among the topics were how power plants would have to meet availability criteria, congestion revenue rights allocation, and solutions to problems with imported power through interties bidding.

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CAISO Cuts Staff by 20 Percent

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