Dive Brief:
- Stretches of extremely cold temperatures could create supply challenges for fossil-fuel generators, but resources are adequate to meet normal winter demand according to analysis by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
- NERC urged the industry to perform further assessments on severe winter conditions using above-normal peak loads and higher forced outage rates, to better reflect the challenges in delivering gas, oil and coal.
- The regulatory authority is beginning to take a more holistic view to reliability and has signaled it will change its analysis in the future to "specifically consider fuel availability and deliverability."
Dive Insight:
Under normal winter weather and demand models, NERC said the North American grid is prepared to reliably deliver power. But should temperature plunge for prolonged periods, as happened last winter during the Polar Vortex, generators could struggle to stay online and meet demand as fuel deliverability becomes an issue.
NERC suggested the power industry review and supplement short-term operational plans as part of its winter preparation.
“Resources in North America appear to be adequate to meet a normal winter peak demand,” said Thomas Burgess, vice president of reliability assessment and performance analysis. "However, NERC continues to monitor the impacts of extreme cold weather on the reliability of the bulk power system and develop advanced approaches for future assessments.”
In a recent report, NERC said the grid performed reasonably well in January when load sheds were avoided by demand-side reductions and voltage reductions as some areas faced low temperatures 35 degrees below normal. Because of the demand spikes, significant amounts of gas-fired generation were also curtailed because of commodity shortages.
Natural gas is the largest fuel type, accounting for up to 43% of the total on-peak winter generating capacity in the resource mix. NERC said that while the U.S. capacity for gas-fired generation increased by nearly 5 GW last year, only 252 miles of gas pipelines with the ability to carry 4.5 Bcf were added.
"NERC and the regions should enhance future winter assessments to further reflect and include
winter-specific risks and vulnerabilities," the agency said.