Winter Storm Elliott, which slammed the East Coast in late 2022, made it “abundantly clear” that major improvements have to be made to the natural gas and electric grid systems, FERC Chair Willie Phillips said Thursday.
Speaking during a regular Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting, Phillips said improvements must be made to the grid to ensure cold weather reliability. He was referring to the joint inquiry completed earlier this year with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) (No. R23-29).
“I have said repeatedly,” Phillips said. “Someone – it doesn’t have to be FERC – must have authority to establish and enforce natural gas reliability standards,” the chairman said. Some recommendations from the 2021 Winter Storm Uri report “are still not implemented. Please get that done. It shouldn’t take five winter storms in 11 years to show us the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in.”
While a final report on Elliott is expected later this fall, regulators have recommended “robust monitoring of how the industry is implementing current cold weather reliability standards.”
The joint inquiry found that dry natural gas production in the Lower 48, from Dec. 21-24, 2022, fell by 16%. In the Appalachian Basin, Marcellus Shale gas output fell by 23%, while Utica Shale production dropped by 54%.
In the case of Consolidated Edison Inc., New York City’s largest gas utility, the storm caused “reliability-threatening low pressures on its delivery pipelines,” regulators said. The utility depleted its storage withdrawals during the storm, and had to use its liquefied natural gas facility to maintain service.
‘Sobering’ Risks
According to regulators, more than 1,700 electric generating units on the East Coast faced 3,565 outages, derates or failures during Elliott, including 825 natural gas-fired units. At one point during the Christmas freeze, more than 90,000 MW of generation was offline at the same time. More than 10,000 MW of the outages were caused by firm gas transportation curtailments, with the unplanned outages caused by mechanical or electrical issues.
“This sobering report underscores the need to take urgent action on the interdependence between the bulk electric and natural gas systems, including the need for sufficient and reliable gas and electric infrastructure to sustain energy reliability,” said NERC CEO Jim Robb.
In response, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) questioned whether investments in gas infrastructure should be pursued given the track record of winter performance.
“This damning assessment from FERC and NERC should be a wake-up call that gas and fossil fuel fail to meet our energy needs,” said NRDC’s senior attorney Christy Walsh, who handles the Sustainable FERC Project. “To be clear, the federal agency that regulates gas and sets standards for reliability is saying that gas is not reliable enough to be counted on when we need it.”
