Volts, watts, amps, ohms – stay inside your tiny homes!

That’s the mechanical engineer’s mantra when faced with an electrical problem.

Vars? Reactive power? Real power? (Is there fictional power?) What is all of this stuff?

Fortunately for us, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) – a nonprofit, public benefit corporation – is responsible for managing the flow of electricity across 80% of the California grid, and across the electrical boundaries that connect California with the rest of the western grid. Doing that job has always been challenging. However, with increasing amounts of renewable energy powering the grid, the job of not only making sure that the lights stay on – but also the job of making sure the voltage and frequency of that power stay steady – has gotten increasingly challenging.

Delphine Hou – the current External Affairs Manager for CAISO, and previously a lead market design specialist for CAISO - has agreed to explain this to all of us in terms that even a mechanical engineer (or a political science major) can understand.