Nonprofit Midwestern Energy

Nonprofit Midwestern Energy-Grid Operator to Add 300-Plus Positions

Mar 11 - The Indianapolis Star

Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, the nonprofit that monitors the Midwestern energy grid, said Wednesday it will add more than 300 jobs over five years, paying an average of $85,000 to $90,000 a year.

The jobs, attracted in part by $7 million in state and local incentives, are the kinds of high-skill positions political and business leaders crave.

"It's critical we move beyond our manufacturing history," said Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard at a news conference announcing the work force expansion.

Midwest ISO is acting on a mandate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reduce congestion and imbalances in supply and demand that played a role in the massive blackout last August.

Midwest ISO is developing an electricity market -- tentatively named Midwest Market Initiative -- that will allow wholesalers like IPL and Cinergy to have a common place to buy and sell electricity from power generators based on real-time market prices.

The market-driven approach, expected to be implemented Dec. 1, is intended only for wholesalers, not consumers.

Norristown, Pa.-based PJM Interconnection, a similar nonprofit with members in seven Eastern states that has used a market system since 1997, released a study showing wholesalers saved tens of millions of dollars during a portion of 2002. Midwest ISO has been told by FERC to work with PJM.

Gov. Joe Kernan said he was glad to have beaten out an offer from Minnesota to move the facility there: "You want to keep those that we have here, here."

Founded in 2001, Midwest ISO operates in Indiana and 14 other states, as well as Manitoba, Canada.

It coordinates the wholesale electric transmission system and ensures access to the grid, though it took some of the blame for the blackout last summer reaching from Michigan and Ohio to parts of the Northeast and Canada.

Since then, it has added a series of rear-projection screens -- which stretch along a crescent-shaped wall half the length of a football field -- displaying maps of its service area, weather maps and color-coded lines representing electrical lines.

If a line were to overload, a power station to malfunction or some other threat to the grid were to materialize, the problem not only would show up on computer terminals on the floor, but the lines on the maps would flash.

Employees can track virtually any aspect of the grid. On Wednesday, one screen monitored IPL drawing 1,888 megawatts of electricity per hour and Cinergy 7,422 megawatts.

The facility is designed to withstand an F4 tornado -- 207 mph to 260 mph winds powerful enough to throw cars and level well-constructed houses. An unstaffed backup facility is located Downtown, and another with 70 employees is in St. Paul, Minn.

The Carmel office employs 265 people. That number will swell to 370 by the end of the year, then to at least 565 when the expansion runs its course, said General Counsel Steve Kozey.

As with the old, many of the new positions will be for electrical engineers and other people with technical experience.

Mitch Daniels, the Republican candidate for governor, issued a statement saying Wednesday's announcement was good news, but he added, "Unfortunately, the state as a whole is not faring so well. The overall trend with regard to jobs in Indiana has been very adverse."

In recent weeks hundreds have lost jobs at Best Buy in Franklin, Delphi Corp. in Anderson and Alpine Electronics in Greenwood, Daniels said.

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