Maggie Shober | Could 13, 2024
| Power Coverage, Utilities
At the moment the Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) issued a rule via Order 1920 that can carry regional transmission planning into the trendy period. This rule is a very large deal for the Southeast, as it can now require regional utilities to plan for the long run and discover methods for transmission to decrease prices, enhance reliability, and enhance utilities’ capacity to attach clear vitality assets to the grid on the tempo required to decarbonize the electrical energy sector.
Presently, regional transmission “planning” within the Southeast is carried out by an entity known as the Southeastern Regional Transmission Planning (SERTP). The SERTP course of is run by utilities, and meets the naked minimal of necessities from FERC’s Order 1000. That implies that SERTP’s present course of doesn’t end in any transmission plans that present regional advantages, however as a substitute stacks every utility’s transmission plans collectively like layers of a cake.
Below Order 1920, SERTP may have practically a yr to file a compliance plan outlining adjustments to its course of to satisfy Order 1920 necessities.
This order will change regional transmission planning within the Southeast by requiring SERTP to: look out farther into the long run (at the least 20 years); take a look at a number of potential futures (at the least 3 eventualities); and take a look at a number of advantages. FERC requires consideration of seven particular advantages:
- Prevented or deferred reliability transmission amenities and getting older infrastructure substitute
- Both decreased lack of load chance or decreased planning reserve margin
- Manufacturing value financial savings
- Lowered transmission vitality losses
- Lowered congestion resulting from transmission outages
- Mitigation of utmost climate occasions and surprising system circumstances
- Capability value advantages from decreased peak vitality losses
FERC Chairman Willie Phillips acknowledged that the Order’s quantity (1920) was chosen as a tribute to the creation of the Federal Energy Fee (FPC), FERC’s predecessor, which was created by Congress in 1920. He goes on to state that the FPC was shaped “to resolve the pressing nationwide problem of methods to develop vitality infrastructure… wanted to satisfy the calls for of an rising world superpower. Why did Congress try this? As a result of in 1920… Congress had absolutely grasped that large-scale improvement of the nation’s energy infrastructure was important.” Phillips continued, saying that “even in 1920 we as a rustic acknowledged that, with regards to the electrical system, we’re all on this collectively.”
FERC additionally issued a second rule associated to transmission immediately: Order 1977, centered on streamlining the allowing course of for electrical transmission. This order may even be impactful within the Southeast, nonetheless it’s Order 1920 that can extra doubtless handle the primary roadblock to transmission: shifting from piecemeal transmission inside utility fiefdoms to holistic regional transmission planning for the widespread good.
We at SACE stay up for working with utilities and state regulators throughout the Southeast to search out one of the best ways to implement this rule and get the area on a path to transmission planning for the long run.
