CAISO named the head of the Bonneville Power Administration as its new chief executive Thursday, a move that could help further the ISO’s expansion of its Western Energy Imbalance Market and increase its regional influence.

Elliot Mainzer has led BPA since 2013. He will replace CAISO CEO Steve Berberich, whose tenure ends Sept. 30, CAISO and BPA said in concurrent statements. Berberich announced his plans to retire in February. (See Western RTOs ‘Imperative,’ Says Retiring CAISO CEO.)

“Elliot’s demonstrated success leading a large, complex power and transmission organization will serve CAISO, our customers and stakeholders well,” the CAISO Board of Governors said in a joint statement. “We are happy to have a leader so knowledgeable about integrating renewables and passionate about building on CAISO’s organizational strengths and momentum toward low-carbon electricity.”

Mainzer has been credited with expanding BPA’s efforts to integrate large volumes of wind generation, adding to the already immense hydroelectric resources in the Pacific Northwest. The federal power giant generates 23,000 MW of carbon-free electricity and operates 15,000 circuit miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Its footprint covers an area larger than France, encompassing the watersheds of the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Under Mainzer’s leadership, BPA agreed in September to join CAISO’s Western EIM starting in 2022. (See Bonneville Power Signs Agreement with EIM.)

CAISO is pushing hard to expand the real-time EIM to a day-ahead market, an effort that has proven controversial among some stakeholders, who worry about California’s control spreading across the Western energy landscape. (See EDAM Design Could Undermine Tx Rights, Critics Say.)

Mainzer has expressed his support for the expanded day-ahead market (EDAM) as a means to trade the growing amount of solar and wind power across state lines.

“It’s not going be enough to sell all this stuff on a five-minute market,” he told last year’s annual meeting of the Northwest and Intermountain Power Producers Coalition. (See NIPPC Members ‘Carry On’ Without Kahn.)

On Thursday, Mainzer said he looks “forward to working closely with our colleagues across the West to build on the success of the Western Energy Imbalance Market and further strengthen regional coordination and technology innovation.”

The BPA CEO is regarded by some as a bridge builder. In a blog post Thursday, Natural Resources Defense Council Energy Co-director Ralph Cavanagh praised Mainzer’s ability to keep an open mind while dealing with disparate interests and forming coalitions.

“CAISO is lucky to get him, as is a western and international constituency broader even than the one he has served so well at BPA,” Cavanagh wrote.

From Enron to CAISO

Mainzer, a San Francisco native, earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University.

He joined Enron Corp. in the late 1990s, working as an analyst and establishing Enron’s renewable power desk in Portland, Ore., according to a detailed biography posted on CAISO’s website.

When Enron collapsed in 2002, after its market manipulation schemes wreaked havoc on California and CAISO during the electricity crisis of 2000/01, Mainzer segued into government service with BPA, headquartered in Portland.

At BPA, he served in a series of increasingly responsible management roles, including deputy administrator, and became acting administrator in 2013. In January 2014, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz named him administrator and CEO.

BPA has been criticized during Mainzer’s tenure for losing money and increasing rates while struggling to maintain its aging infrastructure. Its assets include 31 hydroelectric projects, such as the 7,079-MW Grand Coulee Dam, completed in 1941, and the 2,614-MW Chief Joseph Dam, built in the 1950s.

The agency supplies electricity to 143 electric utilities that serve millions of customers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

Worried about renewing long-term contracts, BPA cut tens of millions of dollars from its annual budget and tried to hold the line on rate hikes.

“Through collaboration with our customers and partners throughout the region, we have worked hard to bend the cost curve and keep base power rates flat,” Mainzer said in a statement last year.

Mainzer has “served as administrator during a period of significant industry change,” BPA said in its statement Thursday. “In response, he led the development of BPA’s 2018-2023 strategic plan, which serves as a roadmap to sustain BPA’s financial strength, modernize BPA’s assets and system operations, provide competitive power products and services and meet transmission customer needs efficiently and responsively.”

Moving from one energy giant to another probably will boost Mainzer’s salary from six figures to seven.

Mainzer made about $245,000 in base pay and bonuses as BPA administrator in fiscal year 2018, BPA reported in response to a Freedom of Information Act request last year. Berberich earned nearly $1.5 million in 2017, according to CAISO’s most recent Form 990 filing as a nonprofit organization with the Internal Revenue Service.

Berberich plans to remain in Folsom through October to help with the transition, CAISO said.