The North American Electric Reliability Corp. Monday said it will begin two efforts to examine power industry preparations prior to last week's extreme weather and the effect that weather had on the power grid, including natural gas supplies and generation outages in Texas and the western US.
The first effort will be to identify the causes of the various generation and transmission issues on the bulk power system, determine what steps need to be taken and pass along lessons learned from the events in Texas and elsewhere, NERC said. The Texas Reliability Entity and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council already are working with NERC on an analysis of the events, the group said.
A snow and ice storm affected much of the country last week and resulted in tight gas supplies -- including pipeline capacity concerns in California -- and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas calling a level-three emergency event, directing utilities to use rolling blackouts because of the amount of generation that unavailable as a result of the storm.
The second NERC examination will have the group's reliability assessment and performance analysis sector review the power industry's dependence on gas and the shift toward greater reliance on gas-fired generation.
"This study will be a broad look at areas in North America where extreme cold weather or loss of a major gas supply could impact electricity production, review existing procedures designed to mitigate the reliability impacts from such events, and, conversely, identify if rolling electric system outages could adversely impact the operation of electric powered gas compressors needed to maintain adequate gas pressures," NERC said.
The second effort will build upon something mentioned in NERC's winter reliability assessment that was issued late last year, noting that the long-term outage of gas pipelines or import paths would lead to the loss of significant amounts of generation capacity.
NERC said it will identify the reliability impact that extreme cold, coupled with gas/power interdependence, can have across North America.
