FERC has clarified the reporting requirements of its Sept. 18 order approving NERC’s most recent cold weather standard as the ERO requested in October, while also answering a clarification request from a group of trade associations on the commission’s authority to set the effective date of the standard (RD25-7).

FERC approved EOP-012-3 (Extreme cold weather preparedness and operations) at its September open meeting, ordering that it take effect Oct. 1, less than two weeks later. (See NERC Cold Weather Standard Gains FERC Approval.) NERC had requested that the standard take effect at a later date, but commissioners said the Oct. 1 deadline would allow the standard to be enforceable before the coming winter and argued that registered entities should already be aware of the coming new requirements because the process was public.

In its approval order, FERC directed the ERO to collect and submit informational filings every two years starting no later than October 2026 and ending in October 2034. The filings must include:

• • the number of cold weather constraint declarations submitted to each regional entity;
  • the number of declarations approved, and their aggregate megavolt-amperes; and
  • a summary of the rationales provided for approved declarations.

NERC told the commission Oct. 17 that it does not currently analyze generating units based on megavolt-amperes but on their real power in megawatts. It asked whether reporting the aggregate megawatts would be sufficient. The ERO also asked whether it could consolidate the biennial filings for EOP-012-3 with the annual filings that FERC directed in its approval order for the prior standard EOP-012-1, observing “significant overlap in some aspects of the information” to be collected in each order.

In its Dec. 5 response, FERC clarified that it ordered NERC to report the aggregate megavolt-amperes “to help the commission understand the reliability risk … from a generator cold weather constraint.” FERC added that it was “persuaded by NERC that collecting real power data [in megawatts] is a reasonable alternative” and gave it permission to use that information in its filings.

The commission then addressed NERC’s question about the EOP-012-1 filings, stating that the biennial filings for EOP-012-3 “build upon” the annual filings and were intended to supplement them. FERC therefore agreed that NERC could consolidate the filings as it suggested. It also clarified that the 2034 sunset date for the biennial filings would apply to the consolidated filings overall, meaning that the ERO would not have to continue the EOP-012-1 filings after that date.

Associations’ Request Denied in Part

A group including the American Public Power Association, Electric Power Supply Association, Large Public Power Council, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Transmission Access Policy Study Group (filing as the Joint Trade Associations) asked for clarification on the commission’s authority to set Oct. 1, 2025, as the effective date for EOP-012-3.

The associations wrote that they did not object to the Oct. 1 date, but they pointed out that the implementation plan for the standard said that if it was approved after July 1, 2025, the standard would take effect Jan. 1, 2026. They further observed that the Federal Power Act requires FERC to remand a standard to NERC for further consideration if the commission concludes that it is “not just and reasonable.”

Asserting that NERC’s Rules of Procedure call the effective date “a mandatory and enforceable component of” a standard and that the commission sees the “effective date(s) [as] an element … in determining whether a … standard is just and reasonable,” the associations requested clarity on FERC’s authority to change the date. Specifically, they asked whether the commission “acted based on [language] in the proposed implementation plan specifying that [EOP-012-3] could become effective ‘as otherwise provided for by the applicable governmental authority.’”

In its response, FERC affirmed it “relied on” the language the trade associations cited in establishing the Oct. 1 date. However, it went on to write that NERC’s ROP “do not apply to the commission or otherwise limit commission actions.” They also cited FERC’s “policy that the requirements [of a standard] are [its] essential, substantive language … and that the commission can direct revisions to compliance-related provisions … without a remand.”

As a result, FERC denied the clarification request “to the extent it suggests that the commission lacked the authority to alter the effective date without remanding the standard to NERC,” despite answering the associations’ question about language in the implementation plan.