WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s monthly open meeting today, Chairman Willie Phillips reiterated the importance of establishing a natural gas reliability authority and expressed his support for North American Energy Standards Board’s recent Gas-Electric Harmonization Forum Report and its recommendations. Phillips also acknowledged a recent letter from the market monitors in support of the NAESB report.
“As both FERC and NERC have been saying the past several years, it is clear that better coordination, planning and operations is needed between the electric and natural gas industries,” said Jim Robb, NERC president and chief executive, concurring with Phillips’ remarks. “We remain committed to working with FERC, and gas and electric industry leadership to help move from admiring the problem to doing something about it. This issue will only continue to worsen if action isn’t taken.”
During the meeting, FERC issued a final rule (Docket No. RM22-12-000) directing the development of Reliability Standards addressing certain reliability topics involving inverter-based resources, according to a work plan NERC must submit within 90 days of the order. FERC also approved (Docket No. RR23-3-000), the 2024 Business Plan and Budgets of NERC, the six Regional Entities and the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body, saying the budget was “reasonable and that the associated costs of NERC’s jurisdictional functions are allocated equitably among end users in the United States.”
NERC appreciates FERC’s focus on reliability matters and will continue to work toward assuring the reliability and security of the North American bulk power system.
