Energy by the West, for the West: Kathleen Staks on the Future of Western Electricity Markets

Kathleen Staks (0:00)

I had a conversation with somebody recently, we were talking about Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and he said, think about these two as water batteries. And he's like, they're each at about 4% charge. Well, what do you do if your phone's at 4% charge? You'll throw it away, you can't even use it at that point. The more resources we have at the disposal, the more coordination there is, the better off we're gonna be from a reliability standpoint.

Todd Snitchler (0:32)

Welcome to the Energy Solutions Podcast. I'm Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association. The Western power system is at an important point in its evolution and being tested from nearly every direction. Electricity demand is growing, while drought, extreme weather and a changing resource mix are creating new challenges for reliability and affordability. At the same time, the West is undertaking one of the most consequential changes to its power system in decades, building broader regional electricity markets across a vast region with very different resources, policies, utilities and political priorities. Regional markets can help address some of these challenges by connecting resources across a larger footprint, improving reliability, making better use of existing infrastructure and creating opportunities for investment. But building a more integrated Western market requires more than designing a market. It requires coordination, trust and approach that reflects the unique circumstances of the region. Joining me to talk about what's taking shape is Kathleen Staks, Executive Director of Western Freedom. Kathleen has spent her career working across the public and private sectors on energy and natural resources policy, including roles with the Colorado Energy Office and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Today, she leads Western Freedom, where she works with stakeholders across the West to advance greater regional coordination and more competitive electricity markets. In this episode, we discuss the evolution of Western electricity markets, the progress toward greater regional coordination and independent governance, and how growing demand from data centers and other new loads is adding urgency to the conversation about the West's energy future. Here's our conversation.

Good morning, Kathleen. Thank you very much for joining us today on Energy Solutions. We've got a lot of ground to cover here about topics in the West, and we couldn't think of anyone better than you to walk us through what's happening in that space. I want to welcome you to the podcast, but also ask folks that maybe don't know you, if you could give them a bit of a history around your background. You've been in the public and private sector, and I'm looking at my notes because you've done a lot of things, from the Colorado Energy Office to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and now Western Freedom.

What drew you to energy policy and what keeps you involved in the role that you occupy today at Western Freedom?

Kathleen Staks (2:50)

Well, thanks first off for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be here.

My career has been a little bit of a winding road, and I've followed one opportunity after another, and really started off doing a lot of natural resources work on the land conservation. I did some oil and gas and mining policy, and then had an opportunity to start doing some work in the electricity sector. I didn't know anything about it, but I've never actually been afraid of learning something new and had a good baseline of relationships with folks in energy offices around the country, given my experience at the Colorado Energy Office, and then some of the utility regulators. And so actually, the Western Freedom thing kind of started over COVID. There were a handful of folks who we kind of got together and somebody said, you know, we really use an RTO in the West. And I was like, okay, go on, go on.

Todd Snitchler (3:49)

I'm listening.

Kathleen Staks (3:50)

I happen to be unemployed at the time. I could use a job.

And the idea was that large commercial and industrial customers haven't really played much in this space. They haven't been involved, but they're a really compelling voice because what you needed was to move some of the utilities, you needed to kind of get some pressure where there hadn't been pressure. And so that was our theory. So that was how we started. You know, in the halls of our homes, calling up large commercial industrial customers and saying, here's our idea, what do you think? And we got off the ground and built on those relationships. A lot of what we originally thought we were going to do has shifted. So for example, we thought, you know, we were like, we're going all in RTO.

And then as we kind of figured out what was happening in the West, which we can talk about, it felt like we were quite ready to have that conversation. And we needed to focus on some of the nearer term steps. And so yeah, it is one of those sectors that just changes all the time. And there's always something new to work on. And I think we've had so much success getting different voices and different states coming to the table and working together. It just feels like there's a lot more rewarding work still ahead of us.