Katherine Sparkes. RPP

When Katherine took the helm of the IESO’s newly created Innovation team in 2018, she built support across Ontario’s energy sector for a plan to prepare for grid modernization and the significant growth in electricity demand that decarbonization and electrification will bring. Katherine’s leadership has since delivered a number of clean energy firsts: enabling Ontario’s 50MW plus of energy storage to compete in the electricity markets; deploying North America’s first local energy market to leverage technologies owned by homes and businesses in York Region to act as a shock absorber to reduce electricity demand on the hottest and coldest days, and securing over $75M in investments from businesses and utilities all across Ontario in projects that will explore the potential of clean technologies like electric vehicles to improve grid reliability, affordability and sustainability.