Perhaps it’s fitting that two decades ago, as a college student majoring in mechanical engineering, Emilie Nelson’s curriculum included such far-flung subjects as electronics, economics, history and women’s studies.

Today, as executive vice president of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), she is overseeing a sea change in the energy industry that encapsulates all of those topics.

“My interest has always been places where you have a confluence of factors, how they move forward,” Nelson said. “From that point of view, this is a fascinating time to be in the energy industry, and it is an honor to be helping to lead the charge.”

NYISO, a private, non-profit organization, manages the energy grid in New York State and oversees the wholesale energy markets in the state. Part of the NYISO’s efforts includes aligning these markets with state goals and changing energy needs and generation types. New York State has recently adopted a law to move to 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030 and 100 percent emission-free generation by 2040. It’s known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA for short.

The NYISO will play a major role in turning these numbers into reality. As one of its top leaders, Nelson must balance the need for reliability on the energy grid with the introduction of new energy resources and the mandate of providing the “least-cost” option to protect consumers. Some have described the task as akin to repairing the engine while the airplane is flying.

“As part of the senior leadership team, it’s my job to make sure this work happens smoothly and with alignment across the organization and our external stakeholders,” Nelson said.

She approaches this complex and demanding goal with a management style borne of 20 years of experience in the energy industry. In 1999, Nelson graduated from Tufts University and took an engineering position with a company that owned power plants. In order to do this job well, it was important to be present within the power plants, working with the operations and maintenance teams, and close to the machinery. Inspecting equipment often required clambering through massive, dark boilers to look over the condition of boiler tubes, or climbing scaffolding to inspect burners several stories high.

“I was willing to get my hands dirty and learn from these more experienced people,” Nelson said. “There are a lot of great people in the energy industry who are willing to share their knowledge, as long as you are working hard to get the job done.”

Nelson’s position allowed her to learn how generation equipment works and understand how a megawatt-hour of electricity is made. But after five years, she decided to move on and took a job at the NYISO. At the time, it was more of a lateral move, but she knew it would afford her more opportunities for learning additional aspects of the energy industry.

“It’s valuable to get out of your comfort zone,” she recalled. “But ultimately, I thought working on electricity markets might be a better fit over the long term.”

At NYISO, Nelson not only learned the complexities of how the power grid functions and how the markets worked, but she was able to shape solutions to some of NYISO’s more challenging problems. Just a few examples include broadening regional markets by increasing the frequency of energy transfers with neighboring control areas, integrating wind forecasting within the Control Room, and developing new analytics to further connect grid and market operations.

She continued to take on new and greater responsibilities within the organization, eventually becoming vice president of market operations in 2014 and executive vice president in 2019.

Today, her overarching goal is to prepare the NYISO for a grid in transition, as intermittent resources such as wind and solar power continue to come online.

The organization is facing such fundamental questions like how will the NYISO provide reliability during periods of peak demand on days without wind or at night? How will it go about integrating power from the increasing amounts of distributed energy resources, which generate small amounts of power at a specific site (such as an energy storage or combined heat and power system)? The NYISO is developing new market-based programs that would create the opportunity for a larger role for energy storage and other types of distributed energy resources, and more is certainly to come.

“There’s a tremendous amount of change that we need to embrace and effectively manage to continue to provide the critical services that we do,” she said. “We are rising to that challenge.”

Much of the work she does today relates to the aforementioned state CLCPA. NYISO is promoting a carbon pricing plan that is seen by many in the industry as the best path forward to help meet the state’s aggressive clean energy numbers. Under carbon pricing, the NYISO markets would incorporate a cost per ton of carbon dioxide emissions into the wholesale cost of power. Carbon pricing would provide an incentive to lower emissions from existing generators and attract new, more efficient generation to replace older, higher-emitting generators.

With the energy industry facing dramatic change, how does Nelson approach the goal of leading the organization through this period of uncertainty?

As she did at the start of her career, Nelson believes in projecting respect for all staff. Creating a culture of trust, where all employees feel welcomed to express their ideas and opinions is critical. In addition, communication in both directions is equally important, she said.

“Although simple in concept, it actually takes quite a lot of time and commitment to communicate effectively with a broad team,” she said. “Achieving the ambitious goals established for energy in New York will require all of our staff working together to lead us on this path.”

As a leader, Nelson knows the importance of analyzing all angles of a topic, to encourage open discussion and know when the time for a decision is right.

“When ideas start to repeat, when you’ve got all the research you could possibly have, or simply when it is imperative to meet a deadline, it’s time,” she said. “Part of being a leader is being able to say: ‘we’ve discussed it enough.’”

As a leader in a male-dominated field, Nelson is proud to have played a major role in creating and promoting a program called Women in NYISO, or WIN. WIN was created as a way to build additional support and opportunities for connection for women (and men) at NYISO.

At one WIN program, long-tenured employees told frank stories about their career paths. Other sessions welcomed guest speakers or created networking opportunities. The group has also made connections to national organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers.

“What started as a casual conversation about supporting women in the industry has become this incredibly empowering program,” she said. “I am proud to see how successful and well-attended our WIN events have become.”