At its November 2021 meeting, NERC’s Board of Trustees took aggressive action to advance critical cold weather Reliability Standards. Most notably, the group approved the 2022-2024 Reliability Standards Development Plan, which prioritizes standards projects for the coming years including a resolution to include new cold weather operations, preparedness and coordination standards as high priority development projects.
Recognizing the urgency of this pressing reliability issue, NERC’s Board of Trustees directed that the cold weather standards project progress in two accelerated phases: Phase 1 is to be completed by September 2022 and Phase 2 of development will be due by September 2023. NERC intends to provide a roadmap outlining what actions must be taken next by utilities in order to prevent a repeat occurrence of the February 2021 cold weather outages.
FERC and NERC issued their Joint Inquiry into the February 2021 Cold Weather Outages in Texas and the South-Central United States on November 16, 2021. The report provides extensive recommendations for modification of NERC standards and utility operating practices. The standard related recommendations will be taken into account by the standard drafting team for the cold weather standard work.
Next Steps
The focused action by the Board of Trustees points to accelerated changes around NERC mandatory cold weather standards. TRC’s technical teams have expertise in all power generation and power delivery engineering subject areas. We can provide an independent review of your current generation and delivery facilities and assess your system’s ability to perform as desired. TRC can help your company meet future requirements and performance expectations in this area of focus by NERC and FERC.
Resources
- TRC Regulatory Update on Cold Weather Standards
- NERC 2022-2024 Reliability Standards Development Filing
Your Trusted Regulatory Advisor
TRC closely follows the national and state regulatory trends in all regions of North America. Our approach to power system planning, design and operations balances solutions that incorporate appropriate industry trends, mandatory standard requirements, regulatory guidance, compliance obligations, best practices, operational goals, and budgets. With expertise in both power system planning and operations, we support public utilities and private energy providers to stay ahead of the curve on regulatory trends and the technical aspects of their operations, including related state and federal compliance obligations.
This regulatory update is a service to TRC’s utility clients, helping keep you informed of issues that impact your company’s electric system reliability risks along with related topics regarding regulatory developments to help you achieve your company’s business goals.
Dylan Achey
Dylan Achey is TRC’s Manager of Generation Engineering Services. He has been leading the effort with TRC generation clients on evaluating and providing updates/information so that clients can meet applicable NERC standards. His highly technical staff perform NERC compliance standard evaluations as well as studies for both generation and transmission clients that need assistance on technical issues concerning NERC compliance. Contact Dylan at mailto:dachey@trccompanies.com.
Steve Persutti
Steve Persutti is TRC’s Senior Vice President of Business Development. He has 25 years of comprehensive management experience within the energy industry and a consistent and successful record in strategic business planning, productivity and efficiency improvements, systems design and implementation, and employee collaboration. His areas of expertise include engineering management, project management, EPC project management, construction management, financial analysis and customer service. Steve has an M.B.A in Finance from the University of Hartford and a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Connecticut. Contact Steve at spersutti@trccompanies.com.