The U.S. power grid appeared to perform better during two bitter cold snaps in January compared with winter storms Elliott and Uri, partly because of operational and other changes made by grid operators, power plant owners and others, according to a report discussed Thursday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s open meeting.
During winter storms Gerri and Heather, grid operators avoided load shedding entirely, compared with over 5.4 GW of rotating outages during Winter Storm Elliott in 2022 and more than 23 GW during Winter Storm Uri in 2021.
Power plant owners reported fewer derates and outages compared with other winter storms, potentially because of improved winter preparedness, Kiel Lyons, senior manager of compliance assurance at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., said during the meeting.
Also, some grid operators relied on importing power from neighboring areas, highlighting the value of interregional transfer capacity, according to Matthew Lewis, manager of event analysis at NERC.
About two-thirds of recommendations in FERC-NERC reports on winter storms Uri and Elliott have been completed or are being worked on, according to Heather Polzin, an attorney with FERC’s enforcement office. The unaddressed recommendations mainly focus on improving natural gas cold weather preparedness and improvements to gas-electric coordination, she said.
The report reflects “significant progress,” while indicating the benefits from interregional transfer capability during extreme weather, according to FERC Commissioner Allison Clements. “We have to find a way to account for the benefits of what those interregional connections are providing in shorter periods of time,” she said. “The commission should continue to facilitate these outcomes so neighbors can continue to rely upon each other.”
Here are five other takeaways from the meeting.
A transmission planning rule is upon us. FERC is set to hold a special open meeting on May 13 to vote on a pending transmission and cost allocation rule as well as an update to its rules for siting transmission lines in national interest electric transmission corridors.
More than 70% of the bulk power system was built in the 1950s and 1960s, electric demand is increasing and there are forecasts of power supply shortfalls in some areas, FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said during a media briefing.
“All of these drivers are telling us … that we have to act now,” Phillips said. “We cannot wait. Our communities that suffer during extreme weather, they cannot wait. America cannot wait for us to issue these rules.”
FERC rejects 3.6-GW pumped storage permit in nod to new tribal policy. FERC on Thursday rejected an application for a preliminary permit for a major hydroelectric project on Navajo Nation land in Coconino County, Arizona. The Big Canyon project, planned by Phoenix-based Pumped Hydro Storage, was opposed by the Navajo Nation and groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity.
FERC investigates possible Winter Storm Uri market manipulation. The agency is continuing to investigate possible market manipulation during Winter Storm Uri, Phillips said during the media briefing. Some possible cases have been dismissed, Phillips said, noting that the investigations are confidential.
“This is a very time intensive process where you have to interview every single party involved, every single stakeholder, government agencies … and we've been in the process of doing that,” he said. “We take this extremely seriously, and we will continue to focus, and if we find fraud in any of our actors or any of our regulated utilities, we will punish them.”
Commissioners decry ‘perverse outcome’ in interconnection decision. FERC on Thursday unanimously rejected a waiver request from Moscow Development, a partnership between Cianbro Development and Patriot Renewables that was planning a solar project in Maine.
Moscow Development missed a deadline for withdrawing its project from ISO New England’s interconnection queue after the grid operator erroneously told the company a system impact study could start immediately. FERC ruled that the waiver request over the missed deadline, supported by ISO-NE, is retroactive and is prohibited by the filed rate doctrine.
“The outcome here is neither equitable nor commercially reasonable,” Phillips and Clements said in a joint concurrence. They urged transmission providers to revise their tariffs to allow for deadline extensions to address extenuating circumstances and to change their open access transmission tariffs to permit FERC to waive the deadlines.
Will FERC update its natural gas review process? Clements, set to leave FERC after her term expires on June 30, continues to dissent from the agency’s failure to use the social cost of carbon as a tool to measure the effects on the climate from natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas facilities the commission reviews. She also said FERC’s “myopic focus” on precedent agreements caused it to miss evidence showing the GTN Xpress pipeline project in the Northwest is likely not needed and not in the public interest.
“The commission must update its Natural Gas Act certification framework to reflect today’s realities and consider the actual costs and benefits of proposed new gas infrastructure,” Clements said. “Industry should be anxious for certainty on a modern, legitimate, and defensible policy to guide it forward.”
Phillips told reporters: “We continue to look at ways to update all of our policies here at FERC, including our gas policies.”
FERC lacks the tools to use the social cost of carbon for determining the significance of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Phillips. “I commit to continue to follow the science, to follow the data and the guidance that we have here at FERC … and I will continue to talk to my colleagues on how to move forward,” he said.
