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Ziad Alaywan, P.E.

Founder & CEO

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Ziad is the Founder and CEO of ZGlobal headquartered in Folsom, CA. With 34 years of experience in engineering, market analytics and project development, Ziad formed ZGlobal in 2005 offering energy consulting services that would strengthen the grid, benefit our environment, and contribute to community and state-wide goals.

 

As a certified professional engineer, Ziad has held numerous leadership positions; including the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) where he was instrumental in designing and implementing the first wholesale energy market in the west. He also managed a $150 million development budget and obtained
the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) balancing authority certification, hired staff, and handled vendor management for the formation of the CAISO.

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Subsequent to CAISO's successful start-up in 1998, he assumed various leadership roles including Director of Engineering and Managing Director of Market Operations. His responsibilities included oversight of grid operator plans for the transmission system and the operation of the CAISO markets. Additionally, he worked for 10 years with Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) holding various positions such as Transmission Planner, Senior Operations Engineer, Transmission and Generation Dispatcher and having managed real time operations of the PG&E control area.

 

In addition, Ziad was elected as one of two western representatives to the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) Operating Committee. He has served on many WECC operations, planning, and market committees and has lectured in the areas of electric market design and operations, privatization, and deregulation at the University of Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne, University of Toulouse, École d'Ingénieurs de Purpan, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and other higher education institutions and serves as a Technical Advisor to the European Union on deregulation.

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Career Highlights

 

  • 1987: Test Engineer on the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) $1 billion 1,200 MW Helms Hydroelectric Pump Storage plant located east of Fresno, CA.
     

  • 1988: Test Engineer on the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) 750 MW Gas Fired Moss Landing power plant in Monterey, California. Designed the plant to decrease its minimum load from 250 MW to 50 MW.
     

  • 1988: Led the implementation of the new Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Energy Management System (EMS) & SCADA system. The new EMS was able to remotely control over 15,000 MW of generation.
     

  • 1989: Led the restoration efforts of PG&E's San Francisco electric system post 1989 earthquake.  1991 – 1992: Optimized and automated the economic and hourly dispatch of PG&E’s hydroelectric system built along all 16 river basins stretching nearly 500 miles from Redding in the north to Bakersfield in the south. Water used to power the hydroelectric system comes from more than 100 reservoirs located mostly in the higher elevations of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. The 68 powerhouses have a total generating capacity of 3,896 megawatts, which is enough power to meet the needs of nearly 4 million homes.
     

  • 1995: Represented PG&E on the Public Utility ‘s two competing electric restructuring proposals. 
     

  • 1996: Participated in the development of the first Unscheduled Flow Policy at WSCC.
     

  • 1996: Led the restoration effort aftermath of when the Western Intertie buckled under the high summer heat of the 1996 Western North America blackouts, causing a cascading power failure affecting nine western states of the United States and parts of Mexico. Four million people were affected.  Power was out in some locations for four days. 
     

  • 1996: Became the first California Independent System Operator (CAISO) employee responsible for the implementation of CAISO operating, scheduling, and bidding systems and Balancing Authority certification.
     

  • 1997: Designed, implemented and led the CAISO team to obtained certification to operate the Balancing Authority of the CAISO by merging PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric Systems.
     

  • 1998: Launched the 1st CAISO Electricity Markets. 
     

  • 2000 - 2003: Oversaw the CAISO Market Operation during the California Energy Crisis  
     

  • 2003 -2005: Let CAISO efforts to re-design the energy and ancillary service markets
     

  • 2005: Founded ZGlobal Inc. 

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Education

 

Ziad holds Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Montana State University with post-doctorate work in HVAC Power System Applications, Optimization, Production Model, Unit Commitment and Power Economics; Montana State University. He also completed a Management Program at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley and has written over fifty publications on a variety of academic subject matters. He is a certified Professional Engineer in the State of California and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

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