NERC and FERC Attempt to Address Electricity Reliability Via Extreme Weather Planning, Security Upgrades, New Ride-Through Standards for Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs), and More from the Latest Meetings

     The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) just adopted two new standards, one related to extreme weather planning and another requiring reliability assessments by balancing authorities. The new standards are listed below as reported by Ethan Howland at Utility Dive:

·        TPL-008-1, focused on improving how planning coordinators and transmission planners prepare for the potential impacts of extreme heat and extreme cold temperature events; and,

·        BAL-007-1, requiring balancing authorities to perform energy reliability assessments in order to plan for potential energy emergencies in the near-term.

     NERC also adopted three new standards modifications related to distributed resources security, risk identification, and authority for data collection by balancing authorities, as detailed below.

NERC said standards modifications approved by the board include the following:

CIP-003-11, which aims to bolster the security of small distributed resources on the bulk electric system by adding controls to authenticate remote users, protect the authentication information in transit and detect malicious communications;

CIP-002-8, which provides improved risk identification by addressing the proper identification of transmission owner control centers that perform the functional obligations of a transmission operator, specifically those meeting medium-impact criteria; and,

TOP-003-7, to ensure that balancing authorities have the authority to collect the data needed to perform the near-term energy reliability assessments.

     NERC was also authorized to request, collect, and analyze cold weather generator data and submit an annual informational filing. NERC made a data request and filed its standards and modifications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

“The data request complements existing cold weather preparedness efforts, and the data will help evaluate what portion of a generator’s fleet can perform at the extreme cold weather temperatures for the location, what portion is under a corrective action plan (and until when) and what portion will not be winterized due to declared constraints,” NERC said.

 

 

FERC’s Proposed Ride-Through Reliability Standards for Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs) including Wind, Solar, and Batteries, and Other Highlights of the Open Meeting

 

FERC Commissioner David Rosner noted NERC’s warning in its 2024 Long Term Reliability Assessment that half of the country faces serious reliability risks and growing resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years:

“Everyone in the room knows that this is not our first warning, and I think we all agree that this is an unacceptable risk,” Rosner said. “We need every last drop of efficiency we can get out of the current system. We need to keep a lot of the resources on the grid today, and we need to build to take advantage of the wealth of natural resources of all types that this country is so lucky to have … We need to make sure that our decisions send signals to invest in the right resources with the right attributes in the right places in the country where they’re needed.”

According to the NERC assessment:

“The trends point to critical reliability challenges facing the industry: satisfying escalating energy growth, managing generator retirements, and accelerating resource and transmission development.”

     Some selected maps, graphs, and tables from the assessment are shown depicting the regions most at risk, the different risks in each region, transmission buildout plans, and forecasted future generation shares by energy source.

 

    The proposed new standards involve the ability of IBRs to ‘ride through’ frequency and voltage changes like faults on the transmission system instead of tripping offline. NERC noted:

“Ensuring fault ride-through capability enables dynamic reactive power support, frequency response, and other services.”

NERC has been documenting instances of IBRs tripping offline including a 2022 event that resulted in 2.5 GW of solar in Texas unexpectedly going offline. The new proposed IBR standards

“…establishes voltage and frequency ride-through criteria for IBRs; and ensures that post-disturbance ramp rates return to pre-disturbance levels.”

These new standards are needed as more and more IBRs are added to the grid. Synchronous resources like natural gas, nuclear, and coal can generally ride through grid disturbances but IBRs must be pre-programmed to ride through.

In Order No. 901, the Commission explained, among other things, that the majority of installed IBRs use grid-following inverters, which can track grid state parameters (e.g., voltage angle) in milliseconds and react nearly instantaneously to changing grid conditions. The Commission then explained that, as found by multiple NERC reports, some IBRs “are not configured or programmed to support grid voltage and frequency in the event of a system disturbance, and, as a result, will reduce power output, exhibit momentary cessation, or trip in response to variations in system voltage or frequency.”

     Other highlights from the FERC meeting mostly involve individual projects. FERC commissioner Judy Chang lamented the lack of transparency and oversight of transmission projects. Rosner also mentioned a 900-MW solar project in Virginia that was removed from the interconnection queue due to being late on a security deposit payment by hours, noting that the generation was needed and the current process failed by making them start the muti-year process over again. Utility Dive also noted:

“A coalition of ratepayer advocates and groups representing large energy users on Thursday filed a complaint at FERC seeking to bar transmission owners from independently planning local transmission projects above 100-kV.”

Sales of companies were approved in the meeting and a New England (ISO-NE) region dispute about who pays for O&M costs for network upgrades was clarified.

 

 

References:

 

NERC adopts 2 new standards to boost extreme weather reliability. Robert Walton. Utility Dive. December 16, 2024. NERC adopts 2 new standards to boost extreme weather reliability | Utility Dive

FERC floats ‘ride-through’ reliability standards for wind, solar, batteries, plus 5 other open meeting takeaways. Ethan Howland. Utility Dive. December 20, 2024. FERC floats ‘ride-through’ reliability standards for wind, solar, batteries, plus 5 other open meeting takeaways | Utility Dive

Announcement: NERC Advances Extreme Weather Protection, Energy Assurance, and Approves 2025 Work Plan Priorities. December 10, 2024. Board 10DEC24.pdf

Standards Actions Project 2023-04 Modifications to CIP-003.  Soo Jin Kim, Vice President, Engineering, Standards, and PRISM. Board of Trustees Meeting. December 10, 2024. North American Electric Reliability Corporation. board-open-meeting-agenda-package-standards.pdf

Reliability Standards for Frequency and Voltage Protection Settings and Ride-Through for Inverter-Based Resources (Issued December 19, 2024). Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. E-10 | RM25-3-000 | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. December 2024. North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Report