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The nonprofit regulator charged with ensuring the reliability of the North American power grid is warning of potential power shortages during severe weather this winter in several regions of the country.
Earlier this month, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which sets and enforces reliability standards for distributed power systems in the U.S., Canada and parts of Mexico, said New England and parts of the South and Midwest “are at risk of having insufficient power during severe winter weather.”
Organization to point to problems with fuel supply, potential interruptions in transportlimited natural gas infrastructure, retirement of fossil and nuclear power plants, and high potential peak electricity demand as contributing risk factors during prolonged cold weather.
“While the grid has sufficient capacity resources under normal winter conditions, we are concerned that some areas are highly vulnerable to extreme and prolonged cold,” John Moore, NERC’s director of reliability assessment and performance analysis, said in a statement. “As a result, load shedding may be necessary to maintain reliability.”
(Relief means intentionally interrupting the flow of electricity to customers in order to reduce the load on the grid.)
For the part of the network it monitors Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, an area that includes all or parts of 15 US states including Nebraska and Iowa. NERC worries that more than 4.2 gigawatts of nuclear and coal-fired power plants have been retired. That is the rough equivalent of four large (1,000 megawatt) power plants.
“Extremely cold weather extending deep into the MISO area could result in large generator outages due to inadequate weathering in southern units and fuel unavailability for natural gas generators,” the report said.
MISO projects its peak winter demand will be 102 gigawatts, with 113 gigawatts of electricity generation available “under normal grid conditions,” Brandon Morris, a spokesman, said in an email. The organization’s all-time winter record for power demand was 109 gigawatts on Jan. 6, 2017. However, Morris said organization staff members noted at a winter preparedness workshop last month that extreme cold weather, intense winter storms and/or fuel supply issues can create challenges for MISO and local utilities.
However, MISO power producers have shown progress in preparing their facilities for extreme weather conditions, according to the organization’s winterization survey, Morris said.
NERC has made a broad series of recommendations to mitigate the risk to the electric grid from extreme weather conditions. First, it said electricity producers should prepare for winter conditions and communicate with grid operators. They should also ensure that they have adequate fuel on hand, and the organizations overseeing them should also monitor fuel supplies. But NERC also called on state regulators and policymakers to “preserve critical generating resources at risk of retirement before the winter season and support environmental and transportation exemption requests.”
Holly Bender, senior director of energy campaigns for the Sierra Club, called NERC’s proposal to suspend environmental rules to keep fossil plants running “the wrong strategy.” Instead, Bender said the report confirms that reliance on fossil fuels is inherently risky, and she urged state regulators to instead launch energy efficiency and weather protection programs that will reduce energy use. “Whether it’s water shortages in the summer or frozen coal piles and short fuel supplies in the winter, fossil fuels like coal and gas struggle through extreme weather,” she said. “In addition to affecting public health, the environment and the climate, fossil fuels are increasingly unreliable, contributing to energy insecurity and unpredictable price spikes that most affect the most vulnerable members of our communities.”
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