FERC Remands NERC’s Proposed Transmission Planning Standard
Finds tolerance for load-shedding ill-advised
Update courtesy of Utility Regulatory News #4069: A regional transmission planning standard proffered by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) has met with resistance from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), because the standard does not include enough system strength or redundancy requirements to guarantee that load-shedding can be avoided under all circumstances. NERC had proposed certain modifications to its Standard TPL-002-0b, which governs transmission planning reliability. Under the revised standard, it would be acceptable to recognize in a regional transmission plan the potential for some degree of load-shedding, provided the overall planning process had been open and transparent and had given all stakeholders a chance to voice their concerns about the plan. According to the FERC, however, such openness and transparency are no substitute for technical engineering criteria that would ensure system reliability. Indeed, the FERC said, NERC’s proposed new standard clearly runs counter to the overarching goal of the transmission planning process, which is reliability of service and avoidance of the need to shed load so as to prevent cascading outages. Thus, deeming NERC’s suggested changes impermissibly vague and overly complacent about the possibility of service interruptions, the FERC returned the standard to NERC for further consideration. For the full story, subscribe to URN.
Posted: May 8th, 2012 under reliability, transmission.
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