The organization that oversees New England’s power grid — essentially the same role as the one blamed for Texas’s winter electricity woes — is being zapped by advocates for its executives’ sky-high salaries and a lack of transparency.
ISO New England CEO Gordon van Welie was the recipient of a total of $2,305,770 as of the last tax filing made public by the nonprofit, which was for 2019. Executive VP and COO Vamsi Chadalavada hauled in $1,746,314.
Another four employees made more than $800,000, and 38 people made more than $100,000 — including eight of the nonprofit’s board members. Various nonprofit-governance publications say it’s unusual for nonprofit board members to be paid, but not illegal.
A Delaware-organized nonprofit, ISO New England is funded largely by fees off the top of residents’ electricity bills, and brought in $194 million in 2019.
ISO NE, which says it takes just over a dollar a month from the average ratepayer in fees, defended its bigwigs’ pay.
“Our board and leadership roles require a considerable time commitment and expertise in markets, power system operations, information security and more,” the company said in a statement. “Our compensation levels are reviewed by outside firms annually to ensure that the company stays competitive and within reasonable ranges when compared to similarly situated companies. Competition for these leaders is significant.”
But David Tuerck, head of the conservative Beacon Hill Institute, slammed what he saw as their shockingly high salaries.
“ISO New England claims it ‘maintains a culture of cost accountability and transparency in its service to the region.’ They might add, ‘except when it comes to paying their staff lavishly,'” he said.
ISO New England is charged with maintaining the power grid in the six New England states, which means the organization is tasked with balancing supply and demand, pricing electricity, maintaining the system and implementing any changes the grid system needs.
These types of independent service operators handle these duties for states or regions across North America. One of those, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — ERCOT — recently caught widespread flak and fired its CEO after the Texas power grid failed during an unusual cold snap several weeks ago.
Progressive environmental advocates have their own issues with ISO NE, mainly around transparency and what they see as a slowness to embrace green energy.
“The board members are well compensated and there’s an opaqueness as to the way they operate,” Jeremy McDiarmid of the Northeast Clean Energy Council told the Herald.
He cited a lack of public access to some board meetings, and what he said was just a general lack of responsiveness to groups looking to engage with them. And, he said, the ISOs are essentially the gatekeepers for what energy is going to customers — so if people want it to be cleaner and greener — and locally produced — this is the place to start.
In that vein, Deborah Donovan of Acadia Center said she worries that the board has taken on a focus of “reliability — to the exclusion of everything else,” including the cost to consumers and the inclusion of green energy.
“We’re paying too much for the wrong thing,” she said.
ISO NE insists it is working hard to make the power grid more green-friendly.
“Building a cleaner electricity system, while maintaining reliability, is a vision we share with New England’s policymakers,” the organization said. “For more than a decade, ISO New England has recognized the growing importance of renewable resources and began preparing for increasing amounts of clean energy in the region’s resource mix.”
But Massachusetts’ centrist Republican Gov. Charlie Baker shares similar concerns with the activists. Baker joined with the governors of Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut in sending a letter last fall, calling for a “modernization” effort and slamming the nonprofit as having “a governance structure that is not transparent to the states and customers it serves, with a mission that is not responsive to States’ legal mandates and policy priorities.”
Baker’s administration said in a statement to the Herald this week that the letter was meant to start a process to reform “the governance and transparency of the ISO New England, regional electricity market design, and the transmission planning process.”
