ISO New England, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the PJM Interconnection and the Southwest Power Pool on Feb. 21 published a position paper to identify for state and federal policymakers issues that, “if appropriately resolved, can enhance the reliability of gas-electric coordination for the benefit of both gas and electricity customers,” the grid operators said.
The initiatives suggested in the paper “are not set in stone but can be flexibly adopted by particular regions to address each region’s unique needs,” the regional transmission organizations said.
However, “there are certain overarching national issues involving gas-electric coordination on which the regulators at the state and federal level, working together with stakeholders, can help make progress,” the paper said.
Although the RTOs believe that focused work is needed on the issues and initiatives outlined in the paper, “we would be remiss if we did not recognize that efforts have been undertaken to improve gas-electric coordination in recent times.”
In particular, they said the level of communication and coordination as well as generator performance was markedly improved during the January 2024 Winter Storm Gerri and Winter Storm Heather events than what had been experienced during the December 2022 Winter Storm Elliott or the February 2021 Winter Storm Uri events.
“By the same token, significant progress has been made on regional gas-electric coordination issues in specific regions including in the west. These more recent experiences underscore the value of better aligning both the purchase of commodity and delivery of natural gas,” the RTOs said.
“If anything, these most recent positive experiences underscore the value of focusing on additional enhancements, building on the work of each of the regions, to better align these two industries. The initiatives suggested herein aim to enhance that coordination ultimately benefiting customers in both systems through improved reliability and market efficiency,” the paper said.
Three Overarching Goals
In the paper, the RTOs put forth a range of immediate- and near-term initiatives aimed at achieving three overarching goals:
- Gas Market Enhancements That Help to Improve Supply and Pricing Options To Ensure Reliability Given a Rapidly Evolving Electric Generation Fleet: This focus is on enhancing gas commodity and transportation market liquidity and transparency, especially during weekends and holidays, as well as scheduling flexibility through the availability and expansion of flexible transportation products, such as no-notice services;
- Operational Enhancements That Proactively Address Specified Reliability Needs and Identified Vulnerabilities: The RTOs urge reforms to address gas and electric infrastructure co-dependent vulnerabilities (such as electric-fueled compressor stations and wellhead weatherization to support extreme weather supplies) and provide comment herein on proposals for additional changes to match the electric and gas day;
- Regulatory Coordination of State and Federal Authority To Address Emergencies: The RTOs outline the need for specific reforms to address the Department of Energy’s authority to address fuel emergencies as well as the need for better alignment of curtailment priorities at both the state and federal level.
The position paper identifies specific recommendations along with suggested specific action steps to be undertaken respectively by the RTOs, gas producers, marketers and pipelines, and/or federal and state regulators corresponding to each recommendation.
