Regulatory Affairs news highlights: April 2024

 

Recent regulatory headlines we’re tracking include:

FERC establishes Federal and State Current Issues Collaborative 

On March 24, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order establishing a “Federal and State Current Issues Collaborative” for federal and state regulators to share perspectives and work together on key energy issues. The collaborative will continue to expand the work of the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission, which was a three-year initiative and is expiring this year. However, potential topics for the collaborative will go beyond electric transmission and may include items related to reliability and resource adequacy, natural gas-electric coordination, wholesale and retail markets, new technologies and innovations, and infrastructure. The collaborative will include all the FERC Commissioners as well as representatives from 10 state public utility commissions (to be nominated by NARUC). Like the Joint Federal-State Task Force, the meetings of the collaborative will be webcast to the public. 

 

FERC approves EOP-011-4 and TOP-002-5  

On Feb. 15, FERC issued an order approving Reliability Standards EOP-011-4 (Emergency Operations) and TOP-002-5 (Operations Planning). In the order, FERC notes that EOP-011-4 advances reliability by requiring Balancing Authorities, Transmission Operators, and load-shedding entities to account for critical natural gas infrastructure loads in the demand response and emergency load-shedding programs they oversee. In turn, TOP-002-5 enhances reliability by requiring each Balancing Authority to 1) have comprehensive operating processes for extreme cold weather periods in its area, 2) notify the entities identified in these operating plans of their respective roles, and 3) provide the operating plans to its reliability coordinator for visibility. Both standards help address reliability issues identified during recent cold weather events. 

 

FERC, NERC, and Regional Entities to conduct joint review of Winter Storms Gerri and Heather 

FERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and the Regional Entities announced that they will conduct a joint review of the performance of the bulk power system (BPS) during recent Winter Storms Gerri and Heather (Jan. 10-16, 2024). In the announcement of the joint review, FERC notes that the BPS operated without any major incidents during the storms, but that operators in some regions experienced challenges maintaining reliability. The joint review will look at progress made since FERC, NERC, and the regions conducted joint inquiries following Winter Storms Uri (2021) and Elliott (2022). The results should be available by June 2024. 

 

FERC issues RTO-ISO metrics report 

On Jan. 31, FERC staff released a report on performance metrics for Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), Independent System Operators (ISOs), and regions outside RTOs and ISOs. The effort is the result of a 2008 Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where the GAO recommended that FERC work with RTOs, ISOs, stakeholders, and other interested parties to develop standardized measures to track the performance of RTO/ISO operations and markets; report on those measures; and interpret how the measures show RTO/ISO benefits or performance concerns. Items of note in the metrics report include the following: 

• Most RTOs/ISOs had actual reserve margins lower than anticipated reserve margins, meaning they had less capacity than expected. 
• All RTOs/ISOs reported natural gas-fired capacity as the largest single fuel type from 2019 to 2022.  
• MISO, PJM, and SPP had the highest shares of coal-fired generating capacity among RTOs/ISOs in 2022.  
• All RTOs/ISOs reported increases in the proportion of energy generated from wind and solar between 2019 and 2022.  
• Other metrics discussed include capacity factor by technology type, capacity retirements, number of Energy Emergency Alerts, forced outage rates by technology type, number of Reliability Must Run resources (units that continue to operate under a temporary contract after a planned retirement decision to address a reliability need), demand response capability, and various cost/market metrics. 

 

FERC and Nuclear Regulatory Commission hold joint meeting 

On Jan. 25, FERC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a joint meeting to discuss topics of mutual interest, including reliability efforts taking place at both agencies. During the meeting, NERC Senior Vice President Mark Lauby discussed NERC’s Long Term Reliability Assessment, and Director of the FERC Office of Electric Reliability David Ortiz and other FERC staff discussed cold weather preparedness and its applicability to nuclear plants. Andrea Kock, the NRC’s Deputy Office Director for Engineering, provided an overview of power reactor activities and shared that there has been an uptick in Small Modular Reactor (SMR) applications. She noted that the NRC is expecting 25 applications involving SMRs in the next five years. And due to support from the Department of Energy’s Civil Nuclear Credit Program, the NRC also expects many nuclear license renewal applications that would extend plant operations originally scheduled to cease operations. The NRC also discussed its cyber security program, including research on the cyber security of novel nuclear technologies. The meeting can be viewed in its entirety here. 

 

NERC files IBR standards work plan with FERC 

On Jan. 17, NERC submitted a compliance filing to FERC with its plan for developing Reliability Standards to address reliability risks associated with the growth of inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as wind and solar. This filing is in response to FERC’s Order 901, which directed new and revised Reliability Standards to address reliability gaps related to IBR data sharing requirements; data and model validation requirements; planning and operational studies requirements; and performance requirements. NERC’s Order 901 Work Plan is included as an attachment to the compliance filing and lays out a detailed timeline for standards projects that address Order 901’s directives and deadlines.  

The first set of Reliability Standards that NERC will work on addresses IBR performance requirements and post-event performance validation, and these standards are scheduled to be filed in November 2024.  The second set of Reliability Standards will focus on data sharing and model validation (to be filed in November 2025), and the final set of Reliability Standards will focus on planning and operational studies (to be filed in November 2026). The compliance filing and Order 901 Work Plan can be found here.