Who we are
Our central role includes managing the provincial power grid in real-time, overseeing and evolving Ontario's electricity market, engaging with government, municipalities and Indigenous communities, and planning for Ontario's future electricity needs. Our employees play a key role in driving grid innovation, protecting the system from threats, advancing the province's energy conservation programs, and forecasting and procuring the electricity resources we'll need in the decades to come.
This is a unionized position that falls within the Market Operations Division in the Markets and Reliability Business Unit.
What makes this role exciting
The energy sector is rapidly evolving, offering exciting new opportunities for those who want to make a difference.
As a member of the Control Room Operations Team, the System Operator helps fulfill the IESO's roles as Reliability Coordinator, Transmission Operator and Balancing Authority for the province of Ontario by administering the IESO Controlled Grid ("ICG") and the IESO Administered Markets ("IAM") on a minute-to-minute basis ensuring a reliable, competitively-priced and sustainable electricity supply for the province:
- through intense and timely analysis, investigation and execution of control actions;
- in compliance with NERC reliability standards and NPCC criteria;
- within the Market Rules and relevant Regulations;
- through collaborative work with other Operations Team members;
- and under the general direction of the Shift Superintendent.
This is a promotion-in-place (PIP) affected role, candidates with lesser qualifications would be considered for a Assistant System Operator role.
What you'll do
In this role, you'll make a meaningful impact by contributing to the IESO team and supporting the electricity needs of the province through:
IESO Administered Markets ("IAM"/"Markets")- Immediately direct generation or shed load to mitigate critical conditions and preserve the integrity and reliability of the Bulk Electrical System (BES).
- Coordinate the IAM as per market rules, NPCC criteria and NERC standards.
- Manage the inputs to the Dispatch Scheduling and Optimization engine ("DSO"), review the solution (both real-time (multi-interval optimization ("MIO")) and pre-dispatch) to ensure accuracy, prepare to manually intervene in the solution if required, and provide final approval of the IAM 5-minute dispatch to maintain the balance of load and generation.
- Monitor/identify/investigate/resolve problems in the real-time and pre-dispatch schedules.
- Monitor/assess/recommend/implement/reconcile ancillary services contracts (e.g. voltage support, regulation) to meet market rule requirements and recommend further actions if the contract requirements are not being met.
- Implement interchange transactions between the IESO and its interconnected neighbours. This includes verifying the accuracy of NERC E-Tags, curtailing tags as required and providing final approval or denial of E-tags and transactions.
- Liaise with neighboring Reliability Coordinators ("RC") and Balancing Authorities ("BA") to ensure all interchange schedules are correct and agreed to. This includes working to resolve disagreements in schedules and arriving at an agreed to solution.
- Monitor/assess/implement the required control actions to maintain inadvertent interchange as low as possible as per procedures.
- Provide final approval for all planned generation outages, and implement connection and disconnection of generators from the ICG into the market tools.
- Implement demand response programs (e.g. OPA DR3 program) as per procedures and direct participants accordingly.
- Implement time error corrections and control actions as directed.
- Reconcile daily reports such as inadvertent, market reports, etc.
Independent Electricity System Operator
1600-120 Adelaide Street West
Toronto
Ontario Canada
www.ieso.ca
