The CAISO Board of Governors approved changes Wednesday to the ISO’s criteria for recommending new board members to California’s governor.
The updates, the first in 16 years, are intended to broaden the pool of nominating committee members and candidates to reflect changes in the electric industry.
“The policy has not been substantively revised since its adoption in 2005,” CAISO General Counsel Roger Collanton wrote in his memo to the board. “While the existing board selection process has worked well over the years, we have determined, with the benefit of stakeholder feedback, that certain aspects of the policy should be updated to account for changes in the industry and the ISO’s markets since 2005.”
“The ISO’s footprint and market have evolved considerably since 2005, with new market offerings, technologies and types of market participants,” Collanton wrote. “In light of these changes, and with the benefit of stakeholder input, management recommends certain relatively modest revisions to the policy to better align the process with current circumstances.”
Among the approved changes are additions to the stakeholder sectors of the Board Nominee Review Committee, which identifies and recommends qualified candidates to the governor.
When the board selection policy was established in 2005, community choice aggregators and energy storage resources did not exist, Collanton pointed out. Stakeholders from those sectors can be considered for the nomination committee under the revised policy.
Another change was to update candidate qualifications “to align with the development of the grid and market and with experience through recent board member searches,” his memo said.
The section of the policy dealing with candidate qualifications was updated to “more specifically reference, under the general category of electric industry expertise, certain characteristics that have more recently gained importance, including experience in forward-looking electric industry technologies, expertise in grid security and operations and experience in other industry sectors closely linked to the electricity sector.”
The revised policy also includes adjustments to categories of qualifying nominee experience, including adding a reference to experience as a “law professor or other prominent legal professional and nonprofit management experience.”
“The updated and expanded set of qualifications should enhance the pool of available board candidates and ensure that the board collectively has the experience needed to meet the current and future challenges of the ISO’s evolving markets and grid,” Collanton wrote.