The Joint FERC-NERC-Regional Entity inquiry into grid conditions during Winter Storm Elliott is a high priority for the Commission. This grid event was the fifth extreme cold weather event in 11 years to result in significant unplanned incremental generating unit losses, as well as the third event during the same period associated with significant natural gas production decreases. Once again, electric grid operators were forced to shed firm customer load to maintain system reliability.
To be clear, there has been a lot of work on this issue.
This past February 2023, the Commission approved a suite of reliability standards addressed the use of manual load shed during Emergency conditions and required Transmission Operators to take steps to minimize the use of manual load shed that could further exacerbate Emergency conditions and threaten system reliability. This addressed five recommendations proposed in the Joint Report regarding the February 2021 Cold Weather Outages in Texas and the South-Central United States that recommended new or enhanced reliability Standards.
Just this past April 2023, the first set of “cold weather reliability standards” became mandatory and enforceable, addressing recommendations arising from FERC and NERC Staff’s report on the causes of the January 17, 2018, cold weather event affecting the south-central United States.
Some other recommendations that were implemented include hosting a winter readiness technical conference and establishing natural gas-electric reliability forum.
However, I remain concerned that critical prior inquiry report recommendations are not being implemented quickly enough, and I strongly encourage the prompt implementation of those recommendations by industry, to prepare for the upcoming 2023-2024 winter.
The presentation also underscores the need for improved gas-electric coordination. Today more than ever, the reliability of the bulk power system is interconnected with the reliability of the natural gas pipeline system. NAESB will provide recommendations to FERC and NERC, so we can move ahead on acting on any changes in both the electric and natural gas industries.
And I strongly support someone, even if it's not FERC, have authority over natural gas reliability standards.
I look forward to the team’s findings and new recommendations, and final report.