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Out West student blog

A new workflow: Researching transmission congestion in the Western Interconnection

Student intern Owen Jung points to the screen of a laptop computer displaying web-scraping code
Owen Jung points to functional web-scraping code on his laptop computer. Photo courtesy of Owen Jung.


Owen Jung (he/him)
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Major: Data Science and English, '26
Internship: Western Interstate Energy Board

Owen Jung reflects on analyzing the Western Interconnection at scale during a summer internship at the Western Interstate Energy Board

The market for energy is a difficult beast, an evolving set of deals playing out over numerous timeframes in order to meet both projected and real-time energy demand, as well as accounting for changes in policy as they come about. Thus, delivering the best-priced energy to consumers across the western United States is no small feat. The process of optimizing the energy market takes place both minute-to-minute and over a frame of years. The Western Interstate Energy Board, or WIEB, oversees the Western energy market at a scale wide across both space and time, attempting to account for the oversights of the market's on-the-ground participants.

This summer, I'm working for WIEB as a data researcher. Together with my coworker, Yueer Cai, I am analyzing energy congestion prices across the entirety of the Western Interconnection, a power grid covering eleven western American states, along with portions of western Canada and Mexico. We're also being advised by Energy Strategies, a consulting firm that specializes in energy market analyses similar to ours. I've learned, through my work, that lubricating the machine of connection and communication across organizations is just as important as managing the power grid itself.

I began by researching the market itself, learning about the different timeframes over which energy is bought and sold, and understanding congestion along transmission lines. Locational Marginal Price, the pricing data that I'm analyzing, describes the cost of one marginal unit of energy, and congestion causes the largest differences in those prices. For example, if generator A can supply 100W of energy at a marginal cost of $10 per unit, but the transmission lines leading from it can only transport 80W of energy, consumers will have to buy energy at a higher cost; that difference is the price of congestion. To fully understand LMP's nuances, I had conversations with with Stanford faculty, the folks at Energy Strategies, and my coworkers at WIEB over the course of a few weeks; if I were doing this job again, I'd focus intensely on background before getting into the meat of the work.

While getting a handle on the market's functionality, I wrote code to download relevant pricing data from the California Independent System Operator's open source API. Then, I created a series of maps and graphs that tracked congestion averages and frequency across the West, deciding to zone in on the Pacific Northwest, where congestion prices in the 15-minute market were consistently higher than Interconnection averages. I got the chance to use a number of other analyses, including clustering and PCA, in my data exploration, applying my math and data science coursework. Currently, I'm using linear modeling and machine learning to analyze seasonal patterns in congestion, and comparing my findings with grid maps in order to present recommendations for upgraded transmission.

Working for WIEB has illuminated to me the complexity and uniqueness of our energy market, a piece of my day-to-day life that I previously took for granted. Also, my coworkers and supervisors at WIEB have demonstrated impressive comfort within the market; they're plugged in to the grid at every point. They've been able to set me up with system operators, private firms, and other government organizations with ease, demonstrating impressive connectivity. Optimization must be put into practice, so analyses like mine are not even half the battle. The importance of an organization like WIEB to the collaboration of states in the Interconnection can't be overstated, and the battle to make our grid as sustainable and affordable as possible must continue as our societal energy demands increase further. The world of energy, with its border-crossing nature, risks disjointedness, so collaboration is the single most important key to an efficient future.

The importance of an organization like WIEB to the collaboration of states in the Interconnection can't be overstated, and the battle to make our grid as sustainable and affordable as possible must continue as our societal energy demands increase further. The world of energy, with its border-crossing nature, risks disjointedness, so collaboration is the single most important key to an efficient future.

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