Commissioner James Danly Statement
November 17, 2022
RD22-4-000
I concur in today’s order.[1] I remain gravely concerned about the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) inability to act swiftly and nimbly in response to emerging risks that threaten the reliability of the Bulk-Power System (BPS). This is due in no small part to the statutory framework of Federal Power Act (FPA) section 215.[2] According to NERC’s Inverter-Based Resource (IBR) Strategy document,[3] “[t]he [Electric Reliability Organization (ERO)] Enterprise has analyzed numerous widespread IBR loss events and identified many systemic performance issues with the inverter-based fleet over the past six years.”[4] NERC explains that “[t]he disturbance reports, alerts, guidelines, and other deliverables developed by the ERO thus far have highlighted that abnormal IBR performance issues pose a significant risk to BPS reliability.”[5] Our actions today in this and another proceeding[6] propose firm deadlines by which NERC must act to register and hold IBR entities accountable for failure to comply with mandatory and enforceable Reliability Standards.
Better late than never, I suppose. Nevertheless, it could be at least four years before certain of the IBR entities are registered and another five years before the full suite of contemplated requirements are mandatory and enforceable. So, it will be about ten or eleven years after the significant reliability risk was definitively identified that we will have required registration and Reliability Standards in place. The reliability consequences that attend the rapid deployment of an unprecedented number of IBRs are, at this point, unarguable. As NERC’s President and CEO explained last week: “the pace of the transformation of the electric system needs to be managed and that transition needs to occur in an orderly way.”[7] Mandatory reliability standards must be implemented as quickly as possible to ensure the reliable operation of the BPS. We at FERC are responsible for the reliability of the BPS under FPA section 215. I fear we may be taking too long to address reliability challenges that urgently need our attention.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] Registration of Inverter-based Resources, 181 FERC ¶ 61,124 (2022).
[2] 16 U.S.C. § 824o.
[3] NERC, Inverter-Based Resource Strategy: Ensuring Reliability of the Bulk Power System with Increased Levels of BPS-Connected IBRs (Issued Sep. 14, 2022), https://www.nerc.com/comm/Documents/NERC_IBR_Strategy.pdf.
[4] Id. at 3.
[5] Id. at 5.
[6] Reliability Standards to Address Inverter-Based Resources, 181 FERC ¶ 61,125 (2022).
[7] Statement of James B. Robb, Annual Commissioner-led Reliability Technical Conference (Nov. 10, 2022), https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/events/annual-commissioner-led-reliability-technical-conference-11102022.