FERC has issued an official notice that proposes new standards for business practices that are meant to improve coordination between the electric and gas industries involved in interstate natural gas pipelines.

The proposal would incorporate the latest changes to Version 4.0 of the Standards for Business Practices of Interstate Natural Gas Pipelines adopted by the Wholesale Gas Quadrant of the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB).

“Such coordination is essential to maintaining reliability for both the natural gas pipeline network system and the bulk electric system, especially during periods when both systems have coincident peak requirements,” FERC said in the NOPR. (The notice of proposed rulemaking is part of the FERC process required before issuance of a final rule.)

Better electric and natural gas coordination has been a priority for decades with FERC, NAESB and other entities making iterative changes as the interdependent, but much differently regulated industries, continue to evolve.

“I wouldn’t frame it quite like it’s never going to be done,” FERC Chair David Rosner said at the post-meeting press conference. “I would frame it more like — on Tuesday, we’re having our annual reliability conference, and if you look back at the arc of our reliability work, it’s constantly evolving. And so one thing that’s important to me is that we work with our expert staff and NERC and with our industry partners to make sure that as the world changes, as these sectors evolve, that we’re doing things that are smart and that are durable, and that make sense, and that solve problems ideally, before they become problems.”

The changes come out of a forum NAESB held at the request of former FERC Chair Rich Glick and NERC CEO Jim Robb “to identify actions that will improve the reliability of the natural gas infrastructure system as necessary to support the bulk electric system and to address recurring challenges stemming from natural gas-electric infrastructure interdependency.” NAESB set up its Gas-Electric Harmonization Forum to tackle those issues, issuing a final report in July 2023. (See NAESB Forum Chairs Push for Gas Reliability Organization.)

Other aspects come from FERC and NERC’s Winter Storm Elliott report, which included some recommendations on coordination that NAESB took up. The changes include one revised standard and two new ones.

The revised standard creates a central location on pipeline informational websites where they can post publicly available data such as scheduled quantity information. Now, pipelines will have a new information category: “Gas Electric Coordination,” which can help ISO/RTOs and other parties assess the data during extreme weather or emergency events.

The first new standard facilitates the posting of applicable scheduled quantity information for power plants that are directly connected to the pipeline as part of the “Gas Electric Coordination” category.

The second new standard supports the inclusion of geographic information of affected areas, locations and/or pipeline facilities by a transportation service provider when issuing a critical notice.

Commissioner Judy Chang filed a concurrence, lauding the work NAESB has done to improve gas-electric coordination with the new standards but urging continued work to improve communication between the sectors and to address remaining issues.

“The NAESB standards proposed here exemplify the type of brick-by-brick incremental improvements needed to address pressing gas-electric coordination challenges,” Chang wrote. “However, these proposed standards alone may not be enough to fully address the ongoing challenges.”

More information sharing will improve situational awareness for grid operators and generators, which will help when the systems are stressed. It might make sense to include information about gas scheduled for generators not directly connected to the pipeline system, she suggested.

“I further encourage continued collaboration between pipelines, suppliers, natural gas marketers and owners of upstream gas gathering systems to update pipeline operators and ultimately downstream gas users and electricity system operators of changes in system conditions, such as wellhead freezes, that could affect natural gas users and consumers,” Chang said.

She asked commenters in the NOPR process to suggest other changes that could improve coordination.