Webinar: Integrating Large Loads into Wholesale Electricity Markets & Balancing Operations: Recommendations from the ESIG Large Loads Task Force
May 28, 2026 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
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Featured Speakers: Beth Garza, Senior Fellow, R Street Institute; Erik Ela, Director of System Operation and Electricity Markets, ESIG
About the Webinar: The United States and other regions are witnessing rapid growth of large loads including GW-size data centers. Many regions are also evolving their wholesale electricity markets, by introducing new products, expanding offerings and technology participation models, and growing geographically. Large loads, which can be configured to have flexibility and/or with co-located supply, require efficient and reliable integration into these wholesale market designs. Due to possible impacts from large unanticipated large load losses or ramps, balancing operation must also prepare to meet these new conditions through changes to or new products and standards. The ESIG Large Loads Task Force Markets and Operations Project Team examined these issues over the last 12 months, bringing in experts, following closely the stakeholder initiatives at RTOs/ISOs and FERC, and fostering dialogue across a diverse set of stakeholders involved in the task force. The group developed twenty recommendations for consideration. These explored (1) the ideal participation model for both inflexible and flexible large loads and how short-term operational forecasts can benefit reliability, (2) assessing impact of different large load configurations, particularly those that co-locate and share the same meter as similar sized generation resources, on different grid services to quantify their appropriate allocation of those grid service costs, (3) designing capacity markets that adequately capture large load characteristics and meet resource adequacy requirements efficiently, and (4) explore the ways in which reserve and balancing functions must adapt to maintain system frequency and area control error with the potential volatility and unanticipated loss of large load facilities. This webcast will share the main findings of this workstream of the task force including the major recommendations for market operators, balancing authorities, and other decision makers to consider in their region.
About the Speakers: Beth Garza is a senior fellow with R Street’s Energy & Environmental Policy Team. Prior to joining R Street, Beth served as the director of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Independent Market Monitor from 2014 through 2019 after serving as the deputy director since 2008. In this role, she was responsible for monitoring market participant activity, evaluating wholesale market operations and recommending improvements to the wholesale market design. Over the course of her 35-year career in the electric utility industry, Beth has held a variety of leadership roles in generation and transmission planning, system operations, regulatory affairs and market design for both regulated and competitive entities. Her previous employers include NextEra and Austin Energy. Beth is a graduate of the University of Missouri and is a registered professional engineer in the State of Texas.
Erik Ela, ESIG’s Director of System Operation and Electricity Markets, has worked across the power industry for 20 years, specializing in electricity market design and operations, renewable energy and emerging technology integration, bulk power system operations, essential reliability services, resource planning, and electricity policy. Prior to joining ESIG, Ela was a Program Manager with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Additionally, he worked for several years with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as a senior research engineer and before that for the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).
The Q&A for this webinar will be facilitated on Slido. Submit your questions here.