McDonald replaces Carrie Bivens, who announced her resignation as ERCOT’s Independent Market Monitor in November.
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Jeff McDonald, a veteran of both the New England and California power grids, has been named ERCOT’s new Independent Market Monitor, according to a March 11 release from the PUC.
McDonald replaces Carrie Bivens, who announced her resignation as ERCOT’s Independent Market Monitor in November.
The IMM is charged by statute with monitoring the ERCOT market, identifying areas for improvement, and protecting against market manipulation or other activity that could hurt Texas consumers. McDonald — as Bivens before him — is an employee of Virginia-based Potomac Economics, which has had the ERCOT IMM contract for nearly 20 years.
McDonald previously served as Vice President and Head of Internal Market Monitoring Unit at Independent System Operator New England and Senior Manager of the Market Monitoring Unit at the California ISO. Prior to joining Potomac Economics, McDonald was Vice President of Concentric Energy Advisors and Principal of Libertas Market Analysis.
McDonald has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Science in Natural Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural and Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis.
For months prior to her departure, former IMM Bivens had raised serious concerns about some ERCOT pricing programs, including the ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service and PUC’s Performance Credit Mechanism plan.