Barbera director of Tres Amigas reliability

Tres Amigas SuperStation appoints veteran Frank Barbera to lead reliability assurance, grid engineering, and operations, aligning U.S. interconnections and transmission planning with renewable integration, FERC, WECC, and CAISO standards for affordable, resilient power.

Tres Amigas, LLC announced the appointment of Mr. Frank Barbera as the company’s Director of Reliability Assurance.

Mr. Barbera, 60, is an electric utility industry veteran with over three decades of handson management experience in utility regulatory and business strategies, engineering, power resources generation, transmission, distribution, and bulk power trading, including the Mexico power market sector, system operations and system planning, and IT systems. As Director of Reliability Assurance, Mr. Barbera’s responsibilities will include serving as a liaison with U.S. Interconnections and other constituents, and leading the engineering and operations for the Tres Amigas SuperStation.

Mr. Barbera is well known for his tireless efforts promoting transmission reliability and transmission process reform, and facilitating access to affordable and reliable energy resources, including most recently renewable energy resources. His work with the Control Area Networking and Discussion Organization CANDO, the Public Power Initiative of the West PPIW, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Western Electric Coordinating Council, the Western Governors Initiative and the California Independent System Operator have been key to addressing the issue of diminishing transmission capacity in California and the western United States.

According to Phillip G. Harris, the Chief Executive Officer of Tres Amigas, “Mr. Barbera’s engineering expertise and decades of experience will be invaluable as we work through the various steps to bring Tres Amigas to market. As one of our key hires, in a sector where utility leadership changes often signal strategic shifts, we wanted to ensure that all design elements were in compliance with each of the regions standards. Franks leadership and oversight of this function will be focused, and he will be our key contact so that these matters can be timely and appropriately addressed and communicated to all affected parties and agencies.”

“I share the goal of all my new associates at Tres Amigas, which is to ensure the most reliable electric service to customers at the lowest cost possible, including through energy efficiency measures, and we will accomplish that by implementing the path breaking ’SuperStation’ concept pioneered by the founders of Tres Amigas,” said Mr. Barbera. “As a part of this team, I plan to continue to vigorously promote renewable power, as I have in my past positions, particularly wind resources, geothermal, and photovoltaics which all have great nearterm potential to augment our Nation’s existing electricity supplies.”

To these ends, Mr. Barbera will be a featured commentator at several upcoming regional meetings in New Mexico and Texas, including the Wind and Transmission Summit hosted by Class 4 Winds on April 29 in Amarillo, Texas, where the Texas-Mexico DC tie has drawn interest. Mr. Barbera will update participants on key aspects of the planning of the Tres Amigas SuperStation.

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