Dive Brief:
- Federal energy regulators have approved changes designed to better align natural gas nomination cycles with electricity markets, but stopped short of moving up the "gas day" by five hours, RTO Insider reports.
- The new rules move up the timely nomination cycle by 90 minutes, and add a third intraday nomination cycle.
- The power industry said aligning the cycles would boost reliability, but gas pipeline operators argued there is no reason to make changes when plants could simply schedule more firm gas supply.
Dive Insight:
FERC has finalized changes aimed at better aligning gas nominations with power markets, but the agency stopped short of the more drastic change the electric industry had requested.
Regulators declined to shift the beginning of the gas day to 4 a.m. CT from 9 a.m. CT, bowing to requests from the natural gas industry to instead alter nomination cycles to allow generators more certainty. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America had argued that scheduling change would alleviate the need for changes to the gas day.
As the electric industry has become more reliant on natural gas, discrepancy between the industries' nomination cycles has become a more severe issue. Because the electric industry's variable schedule begins at midnight in the operator's territory, power plants risk running out of fuel before pipeline operators begin dispatching fuel.
Regulators had asked the North American Energy Standards Board to reach a consensus on the coordination issue, but the group was unable to reach common ground. In its order, FERC found "it is not clear that requiring a change in the gas day start time would provide sufficient benefits to outweigh the operational and safety impacts and costs of making such a change."
