NERC
FERC Changes Course on Grid Standard
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has reversed course and approved its bulk power system watchdog’s interpretation of a key transmission planning reliability standard. The commission dropped plans to substitute its own alternative.
Federal regulators have changed course and approved an industry-backed interpretation of a key grid reliability standard. (Photo By: RinoCdZ)
FERC’s Sept. 15 about-face concerns the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s interpretation of a standard for two areas: bulk electric system performance following loss of a single element, and restoration of power during a system emergency.
The commission’s redundancy-heavy alternative [Docket RM10-6] would have required up to 50,000 system retrofits, taking years to study, design and complete, NRECA and other industry stakeholders told FERC staff. It could have cost some $24 billion.
The regulators’ proposed interpretation would have “create[d] enormous new obligations with no consideration of cost and no quantification of reliability benefit,” and given no weight to NERC’s technical expertise, they added.
NRECA characterized the commission’s change of course—which followed extensive industry input—as “a major win for electric utilities.”
FERC’s March 2010 proposal was an overreach, stakeholders asserted, because NERC, not the commission, has exclusive authority to develop and propose reliability standards and formal interpretations. They noted that FERC’s role is to approve, remand or disapprove such proposals, not to change them.
FERC’s decision to pull back is important to NERC and the industry as a whole, NRECA said, because it “averts a showdown over FERC’s previously asserted authority to rewrite industry standards by unilaterally ‘reinterpreting’ them.”
“Through stakeholder input, and commission staff outreach, FERC deferred to the expertise of the industry and accepted the interpretation of the standard as originally filed with the agency,” said Patti Metro, NRECA manager of transmission and reliability standards.
FERC directed its staff to meet with NERC and its appropriate subject matter experts to explore the regulators’ reliability concern. It also directed the watchdog organization to make an informational filing within six months explaining whether there is a further system protection issue that needs to be addressed, and, if so, the appropriate forum and process for such consideration.
Tags: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, North American Electric Reliability Corporation