NERC Retreats From Dire Reliability Warnings On ESPS But Still Seeks Fixes

摘要

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the nation's top reliability watchdog, is backing away from its earlier dire warnings about the potential impacts of EPA's proposed rule governing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing power plants but the group is still seeking additional flexibility, a reliability assurance mechanism and more time for the sector to comply. NERC April 21 released a long-awaited report, the first of three, that identifies potential reliability risks resulting from generation changes due to EPA's proposed rule. The report generally reiterates the group's prior assessments that as much as 36 gigawatts of baseload generation could retire due to the existing source performance standards (ESPS) by 2025. It calls for more time for industry to build needed transmission and other infrastructure to allow a smooth transformation, urges the agency to provide a reliability assurance mechanism to limit uncertainty and seeks to ensure that state and regional compliance plans be developed in consultation with reliability authorities.