By Bri Conn

Who is responsible for ensuring that residents and businesses in Ontario always have access to electricity? Many people never think to question the reliability of electricity in this province thanks to the work of the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO): the crown agency responsible for managing Ontario’s power system. Check out this month’s employer spotlight to learn more about the IESO’s important work, and how you can pursue opportunities with the IESO.

Who is the IESO?

The IESO is a not-for-profit company owned by the provincial government that operates Ontario’s electricity market. They report to the Ontario Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines [1]. The IESO was formed in 1998, when Ontario restructured its electric power industry into a fully competitive electricity market at the wholesale level [2].

The company employs almost 1000 people working out of offices in Toronto, Mississauga, and Oakville, in roles such as power systems engineers and analysts, information technology, business, finance, system and market operations, human resources, communications, and customer service [3].

What does IESO do?

The IESO manages Ontario’s electricity market - connecting electricity producers with customers to ensure that residents continue to pay a fair price for electricity, with a high degree of reliability [4] [5].

They work behind the scenes, operating the electricity market to ensure that residents of Ontario are receiving reliable power at a low cost. In Ontario, electricity generators such as Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power produce electricity and are looking to sell it to consumers. For each five minute period, the IESO forecasts the province’s electricity demand and lets generators know how much electricity is required to meet the demand. They can then set the wholesale electricity price for the five-minute period, and different generators can bid to win contracts to sell their electricity at the going rate, based on the forecasted demand [2] [4].

Figure 1: IESO’s control room display. Original image found here.

This electricity is then purchased by consumers - which includes large industrial companies like steel manufacturers and industrial agriculture, as well as distribution companies who represent groups of household consumers. To operate the market, the IESO acts to orchestrate all of these transactions, striking a balance between the supply and demand for electricity to ensure that Ontario has reliable power, without having so much generation that considerable amounts of power are wasted. This is a careful coordination between the generators, transmission companies, distribution companies, and interconnections with other electricity grids to import or export excess electricity [6]. The IESO repeats this process every five minutes, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and handles over $18 billion in financial transactions per year [4]!

What opportunities does IESO offer to McMaster students?

The IESO has previously advertised positions on OscarPlus for student co-op terms, and hires students for a variety of positions, include some based in software and data analytics [4]. Past intern opportunities have included working with databases to analyze outages and noncompliance events, to look for trends in the large amount of data that is taken from the grid. Other departments at the IESO include planning, analyzing life cycles of power in Ontario to ensure it continues to be reliable , and market investigations [3].

Be sure to check out their website www.ieso.ca to keep up to date with any opportunities at the IESO, as well as the IESO’s podcast Powering Tomorrow for ‘insightful discussions with leaders from across Ontario's electricity industry and beyond’ [7]!

If you are interested in learning more, sign up for the McMaster Energy Conference, where the interim CEO of the IESO and host of the Powering Tomorrow Podcast, Terry Young will be one of our Energy Executives Panelists!

References

[1] Public Appointments Secretariat, “Independent Electricity System Operator (Ieso),” Ontario. [Online]. Available: https://www.pas.gov.on.ca/Home/Agency/218. [Accessed: February 18, 2021].

[2] City of Toronto, “Independent Electricity System Operator,” City of Toronto 311 Knowledge Base. [Online]. Available: https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/non-profit/independent-electricity-system-operator.html. [Accessed: February 20, 2021].

[3] IESO, “Independent Electricity System Operator,” LinkedIn. [Online]. Available: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ieso/. [Accessed: February 18, 2021].

[4] IESO, “Connecting Today, Powering Tomorrow,” Independent Electricity System Operator, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.ieso.ca/en/. [Accessed: February 16, 2021].

[5] C. Perkel, “Key staff may need to stay at work sites, Ontario power system operator says,” Toronto Star, April 2, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/2020/04/02/key-staff-may-need-to-stay-at-work-sites-ontario-power-system-operator-says.html. [Accessed: February 18, 2021].

[6] J. Grant, “Electricity Restructuring: Is Ontario Getting it Electricity Restructuring: Is Ontario Getting it Right?,” International Association for Energy Economics Energy Forum, 2002. Available: https://www.iaee.org/newsletter/issue/77. [Accessed: February 22, 2021].

[7] IESO, “Powering Tomorrow Podcast,” Soundcloud - Independent Electricity System Operator, 2021. [Podcast]. Available: https://soundcloud.com/poweringtomorrowpodcast. [Accessed: February 23, 2021].

Employer Spotlight: IESO