It’s July! Each summer we welcome a close observer of California’s electricity scene, former CPUC president and long-time activist for progressive energy policy, Loretta Lynch. Her unfettered analysis of wholesale market dynamics, participants and actions always illuminates this mysterious work and educates us all. This month, she’ll focus again on the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and its sway over elected officials, as it tries to keep from following California law and protecting us all as consumers.
An Alliance favorite, we invite Loretta every summer, as the frailties of the grid loom large. In 2022, she illuminated CAISO’s failures to implement market rules, thereby enabling unnecessarily high prices (see In the Trenches of the Transition: One Step Forward, How Many Steps Backward?). In 2021, she examined the 2020 rolling blackouts and how predatory “deregulated markets” were responsible. We always learn a lot from Loretta’s annual look at CAISO’s “summer shenanigans”.
