IESO VP Leonard Kula shares experience integrating renewables
September 28, 2017
The IESO’s Leonard Kula, Vice-President of Market and System Operations and COO, spoke at the Alberta Power Symposium and the University of Alberta last week to share lessons learned from integrating renewable energy in Ontario. With over 11 years’ experience working in power system operations at the IESO, Leonard has witnessed first-hand the transformation of Ontario’s generating fleet.
While wind and solar may seem like inherently unpredictable forms of generation, they are actually resources that, with the right tools, can be harnessed to support reliability. One milestone Leonard shared was the IESO’s 2013 Renewables Integration Initiative, which implemented a centralized forecasting service and was instrumental in providing improved visibility, forecast and control.
The IESO has recently turned its attention to acquiring greater flexibility from resources capable of responding within a short time-frame to help manage forecast uncertainty in the real-time energy market. To provide the best value for ratepayers, the IESO is exploring ways the electricity market might be able to ‘signal’ the flexibility need within a sufficient timeframe and to acquire additional flexibility from existing facilities.