Here are some of the highlights:

• Shortens judicial review timelines before, during, and after litigation on all types of federal authorizations for energy and mineral projects; Sets a 150-day statute of limitations from the final date of agency action on a project, requires expedited review of legal challenges, and sets a 180-day deadline for federal agencies to act.

• Sets a new goal to authorize 50 GW of renewable energy on federal land by 2030. Adds energy storage as an eligible project under Section 3101 of the Energy Act of 2020, including it in the scope of the Renewable Energy Coordination Office (RECO) programs.

• Accelerates leasing and permitting decisions on federal lands without bypassing environmental and land-use laws. Sets deadlines and doubles production targets for renewable energy permitting on federal lands. Streamlines environmental reviews for low-disturbance renewable, electric grid, and storage projects, modernizes geothermal leasing and permitting processes, and more.

• Requires the Secretary of the Interior to hold at least one offshore wind lease sale and one offshore oil and gas lease sale per year from 2025 through 2029, subject to minimum acreage requirements, without bypassing environmental reviews. At least 400,000 acres must be offered per year in sales. and the Secretary must establish a national goal of 30 GW for offshore wind energy production, set a target for achieving that goal, and periodically revise it as necessary.

• Reforms existing backstop siting authority for interstate electric transmission lines and requires interregional transmission planning. For more on the bill’s impact on electric transmission, check out John Engel’s write-up on POWERGRID International.

• Requires FERC and NERC to assess future federal regulations significantly affecting power plants, and offer formal comments to federal agencies on reliability. If FERC determines a rule, regulation, or standard proposed by another agency is likely to result in a violation of a mandatory electric reliability standard or resource adequacy requirement or process on file with FERC, NERC is required to conduct an assessment and report back to FERC.

• Allows FERC to extend start-construction deadlines for certain existing hydropower licenses by four additional years.

You can peruse a section-by-section breakdown of the bill here.

Reaction to the legislation

“It has long been too difficult to build some of the critical energy infrastructure America needs, and this bipartisan proposal provides a good foundation on which to build a comprehensive package of legislative reforms,” said Harry Godfrey, managing director of the national trade association Advanced Energy United. “Both parties agree that unreasonable timetables and fragmented planning processes are making it too difficult to invest and build, providing Congress a unique opportunity to pass legislation that unlocks America’s innovative industries and improves grid reliability and energy costs for households and businesses.”

“The United States of America is blessed with abundant natural resources that have powered our nation to greatness and allow us to help our friends and allies around the world,” said Chairman Manchin. “Unfortunately, today our outdated permitting system is stifling our economic growth, geopolitical strength, and ability to reduce emissions. After over a year of holding hearings in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, thoughtfully considering input from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and engaging in good faith negotiations, Ranking Member Barrasso and I have put together a commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation that will speed up permitting and provide more certainty for all types of energy and mineral projects without bypassing important protections for our environment and impacted communities. The Energy Permitting Reform Act will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader. The time to act on it is now.”

“For far too long, Washington’s disastrous permitting system has shackled American energy production and punished families in Wyoming and across our country. Congress must step in and fix this process,” added Ranking Member Barrasso. “Our bipartisan bill secures future access to oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters. We fix the disastrous Rosemont decision so that we can produce more American minerals instead of relying on China. We permanently end President Biden’s reckless ban on natural gas exports. And we ensure we can strengthen our electric grid while protecting customers. This legislation is an urgent and important first step towards improving our nation’s broken permitting process.”

NERC standard EOP-012-2 would increase requirements for generators during cold weather events, introducing new definitions, clarifications and requirements to ensure effective planning for generators in these types of conditions.

FERC directed NERC to submit modifications to EOP-012-2, including:

• Clarify ambiguity of the term “Generator Cold Weather Constraint” with objective and detailed criteria so affected entities understand what is required of them. This includes removing subjective terms like “reasonable cost,” “unreasonable cost,” “cost,” and “good business practices.”
• Ensure NERC reviews and confirms each Generator Cold Weather Constraint declaration promptly to prevent avoiding compliance with the proposed reliability Standard or obligations in a corrective action plan.
• Shorten and clarify the timelines for corrective action plan implementation.
• Require pre-approval from NERC for any extension of corrective action plans beyond the standard timeframe and ensure generator owners notify relevant entities of any operational limits in extreme cold weather during the extension.
• Implement more frequent reviews of Generator Cold Weather Constraint declarations to verify their validity.

Reduced renewable availability, combined with inadequate freeze protection in some U.S. regions has caused rolling blackouts and even long-term power outages during periods of extreme cold weather in recent years.

In November 2023 FERC-NERC released their final report on Winter Storm Elliott, the Christmas 2022 storm that caused widespread power outages for millions of customers in the Eastern U.S.

With Winter fast approaching, the report recommended completion of cold weather reliability standard revisions initially identified after 2021’s Winter Storm Uri and robust monitoring of how the industry is implementing these standards.

During Elliott, which took place December 21-26, 2022, 1,702 generating units experienced 3,565 outages, derates or failures to start. 825 of the units were natural gas-fired generators.

Outside of this week’s action on EOP-012-2, FERC announced a dashboard that will track the status of recommendations from past FERC-NERC-Regional Entity analyses of performance during winter storms.

Despite no major events comparable to Winter Storms Uri (2021) or Elliott (2022), the weighted equivalent forced-outage rates (WEFOR) of baseload coal and cycled natural gas units remained high in 2023, the report noted. WEFOR measures the probability that a group of units will not meet their generating requirements because of forced outages or forced derates, according to NERC. The weighting gives larger units more impact to the metric than smaller units.

Although coal-fired generation experienced a large decrease in WEFOR in 2023 (12% in 2023 versus 13.9% in 2022), it remains above pre-2021 rates. While the age of coal units slightly correlates with WEFOR, NERC noted maintenance and reduced service hours have a greater impact than forced outages.

The regulatory body said industry statements suggest that “reduced investment in maintenance and abnormal cycling, which are being adopted primarily in response to rapid changes in the resource mix, are negatively impacting baseload coal unit performance.” Analysis shows that coal units operating below 60% capacity face higher outage rates, NERC said.

The WEFOR for wind generation increased to 18.9% in 2023 from 18.1% in 2022. This rise is concerning given the recent growth in wind generation, NERC said.

In 2024, new and expanded reporting requirements for both conventional and renewable generation were implemented. This would enable more comprehensive future analyses and assessments of both inverter-based resources and conventional generating units.

See the 2024 State of Reliability here.

Heat events that affect generation, wind output or transmission systems coupled with demand growth in some areas are contributing to resource adequacy risks, according to NERC’s findings released this week.

All areas were assessed to have adequate supply for normal peak load due largely to a record 25 GW of additional solar capacity being added since last year, the organization said. However, energy risks are growing in several areas when output from renewables like solar, wind and hydro is low.

The 2024 assessment found a significant increase in demand, driven by the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and construction of new data centers. This was particularly the case in the Southwest, Texas and British Columbia.

Seven areas – Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), MRO-SaskPower, NPCC-New England, Texas RE-ERCOT, WECC-British Columbia, WECC-California/Mexico and WECC-Southwest – were found to be at “elevated risk” of energy emergencies during extreme conditions. NERC said this was due to several factors, including recent generator retirements, wind generator performance, drought and unplanned outages or a combination of these factors resulting in insufficient reserves.

In Texas and California, for example, where solar PV resources make up a large portion of the resource mix, the risk of electricity supply shortfalls occurs in the late afternoon and evening hours as solar output is diminished.

“One of the key challenges operators face as the resource mix evolves is how to get through the summer evening periods with fewer available resources at their disposal,” said John Moura, NERC’s director of Reliability Assessments and Performance Analysis.

While no bulk power system reliability impacts are foreseen for the upcoming summer, NERC is stressing the increasing importance of gas and electric coordination. The organization recommended that balancing authorities be cognizant of natural gas supply infrastructure outage and maintenance plans with the potential to affect generators in their areas.

NERC also identified other reliability issues that should be taken into consideration prior to summer, including the response by inverter-based resources to system disturbances, which affect solar facilities, battery storage and conventional l generation.

The assessment also made several recommendations for policymakers to consider implementing prior to the start of the season:

• Reliability coordinators, balancing authorities and transmission operators in elevated risk areas should review seasonal operating plans and the protocols for communicating and resolving potential supply shortfalls; employ conservative generation and transmission outage coordination procedures commensurate with long-range weather forecasts; and engage state or provincial regulators and policymakers to prepare for efficient implementation of demand-side management mechanisms.

• Generator operators with solar PV resources should implement recommendations from the March 2023 IBR Performance Issues Alert.

• State regulators and industry should have protocols in place at the start of summer for managing emergent requests from generators for air-quality restriction waivers.

During Winter Storms Gerri and Heather, which took place January 10-17, there was zero system operator-initiated load shed, staff shared in a presentation at the FERC meeting on Thursday.

This was in stark contrast to the more the 5,400 MW of load shed during Winter Storm Elliott and the more than 23,000 MW of load shed during Winter Storm Uri. The latter was the largest ever system operator-initiated load shed event across North America.

The scope of the Gerri-Heather performance review presented by staff included electricity planning and operations practices, procedures and resources used prior to and during the January 2024 winter storms, as well as generator performance before and during those storms

Compared to Winter Storms Elliott and Uri, FERC-NERC staff said generators reported fewer derates or outages during Gerri and Heather. Staff presenters said this is potentially attributed to improved winter preparedness, proactive generator commitment, improved gas generator stability due to variable fuel supply methods and incorporating operating limitations into plans.

Most generator owners and operators were able to procure natural gas during the storms, staff also reported Thursday.

Multiple generator owners and operators stated that they have developed cold weather checklists, according to the report. This has helped them review the status of their freeze protection measures, fuel availability, and supplies of needed consumables.

Other observations from Thursday’s presentation included:

•A grid operator stated that since Winter Storm Uri, a significantly higher percentage of its generators can operate below freezing temperatures.

•A grid operator stated that the Public Utility Commission of Texas’s generator winterization rules have been a strong driver of improved generator performance during cold weather events, including during Gerri and Heather.

•A grid operator stated that it observed a ten-fold reduction in outages as compared to Winter Storm Elliott and attributed it to implementing lessons learned, its after-action review process, and completing thousands of winter readiness activities.

•The above winterization measures taken prior to and during the January arctic storms are consistent with and strengthen the importance of recommendations from the Winter Storm Uri and Elliott after-action reports.

FERC and NERC are working to establish an online dashboard to track the status of the Winter Storm Uri and Elliott recommendations. Between the two storms, 39 recommendations related to grid reliability during extreme cold weather were proposed.

Of the 39 total recommendations, two-thirds of recommendations are completed or in progress, staff said at the FERC meeting. Of the one-third that remain, most recommendations are related to improving natural gas cold weather preparedness and improvements to gas-electric coordination.

Staff noted the challenges highlighted in Thursday’s presentation emphasize the need for continued implementation of recommendations from the Winter Storm Uri and Elliott reports.

Fuel supply issues appear prominently in this year’s assessment, NERC said, adding that reliability coordinators are “closely monitoring the coal and liquid fuel inventories,” as well as the potential impacts that transportation disruptions can have on availability and replenishment of all fuels. 

NERC said that while the grid has a sufficient supply of capacity resources under normal winter conditions, it is “concerned that some areas are highly vulnerable” to extreme and prolonged cold. As a result, load-shedding may be required to maintain reliability.”

The assessment said that high peak-demand projections, inadequate generator weatherization, fuel supply risks, and limited natural gas infrastructure are contributory factors to reliability risk. 

Regions at particular risk this winter include:

• Texas, SERC-East and southern parts of MISO risk a “significant number” of generator forced outages in extreme and prolonged cold temperatures. Generators and fuel supply infrastructure are not designed for such conditions and “remain vulnerable without weatherization upgrades.” Peak electricity demand which rises during extreme cold which “compounds the risk.”

• Midcontinent ISO (MISO) has retired more than 4.2 GW of nuclear and coal- fired generation since last winter, with few resources added. Consequently, reserve margins in the region have fallen by more than 5%. An extreme cold-weather event that extends deep into MISO’s area could lead to high generator outages from inadequate weatherization in southern units and unavailability of fuel for natural-gas-fired generators.

 • New England has limited natural gas transportation capacity and relies on liquefied natural gas and oil-fired generators on peak demand days. Potential constraints on the fuel delivery systems, coupled with the limited inventory of liquid fuels, “may exacerbate the risks for fuel-based generator outages and output reductions” that result in energy emergencies during extreme weather.

• Alberta and NPCC-Maritimes both project that peak electricity demand will grow in these winter- peaking systems. In the Maritimes, this could strain capacity for normal winter peak conditions. Alberta has sufficient capacity for normal winter peak demand; however, extreme conditions that cause high generator forced outages are likely to cause energy emergencies.

The assessment acknowledges progress made by industry to improve generator performance, since Winter Storm Uri in 2021. Mark Olson, NERC’s manager of Reliability Assessments said, “While the risk of energy emergencies in the three areas hardest hit during that event has not been eliminated, enhancements to equipment freeze protection and cold weather preparations for both the gas and electric industries is a positive step.”

To reduce the risks of energy shortfalls on the bulk power system this winter, NERC recommended the following actions:

• Cold weather preparations: Generators should prepare for winter conditions and communicate with grid operators.

• Fuel: Generators should take early action to assure fuel and communicate plant availability. Reliability coordinators and balancing authorities should monitor fuel supply adequacy, prepare and train for energy emergencies, and test protocols.

• State regulators and policymakers: States regulators should preserve critical generation resources at risk of retirement prior to the winter season and support requests for environmental and transportation waivers. In New England, the states should support fuel replenishment efforts.

Read the assessment here.