Awareness of Risk from Extreme Weather

Extreme weather poses a significant risk in the SERC Reliability region, according to a presentation from Maria Haney, the regional entity’s manager of situational awareness and events analysis, who provided an update on Hurricane Ida and an overview of the bulk power system.

Ida, which struck Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29, caused 210 transmission line outages and left 1.184 million customers without power in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“We recognize that these storms have devastating impacts on the power system and the community,” Haney said. “During extreme weather events, we know it is critical for the industry — from government agencies to the ERO Enterprise to registered entities within our [footprint] — to coordinate with the impacted entities throughout the days of restoration.”

Haney said that SERC is working with stakeholders to promote awareness by offering forums on extreme weather events, discussing trends and lessons learned, and offering resources such as checklists that show best practices.

“Although we are at the peak of the hurricane season,” Haney said, SERC is promoting winter weather readiness. It has already held several webinars in August and September, and NERC had an alert to survey agencies to prepare for the upcoming season.

“We’ve seen an increase in cold weather events over the last several years. So we plan to have that be an ongoing activity in our program,” Haney said. “We do plan to modify cold weather standards that will come out, including the release of the February cold weather inquiry report [from FERC and NERC] in November.” (See related story, FERC, NERC Share Findings on February Winter Storm.)

Erixton Nominated to Board

The board approved the nomination of Ricky Erixton, vice president of electric systems for the Jacksonville Electric Authority in Florida, to a two-year term as a municipal sector representative.

Erixton replaces Robert McGarrah, general manager of the city of Tallahassee’s electric and gas utility, who retired in June before the end of his term. Erixton was the only nominee to replace McGarrah, so the sector election was able to be conducted by email ballot. He was approved by a majority of the municipal sector, and there was no opposition.

Upcoming Meeting Schedule

The next board meeting is scheduled for Dec. 15, and it will be a hybrid event, with both WebEx and in-person attendance in Charlotte, N.C.

SERC President and CEO Jason Blake said he wants to be “optimistic” about the in-person component. However, if the mask mandate for indoor spaces in Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, is still in effect come December, Blake added that SERC would “probably revisit” the in-person meeting and go completely virtual.

The meetings for 2022 are scheduled to be in-person gatherings, for now:

• March 30 in Savannah, Ga.
• June 23 in Charlotte
• Sept. 22 in Charlotte
• Dec. 14 in Charlotte