Extreme weather, supply chain constraints and resource uncertainty top the risks facing the SERC Reliability footprint in the next two years, presenters said at a Jan. 23 webinar presenting the regional entity’s latest Regional Risk Report.

SERC publishes the regional risk report every two years to supplement NERC’s Reliability Risk Priorities Report; the ERO’s report is published in odd-numbered years, while SERC’s is released in even-numbered years.

“I can’t really think of anything better for our industry and our [power] grid than this report,” Tim Ponseti, SERC’s vice president of operations, said at the webinar examining the report. “It’s foundational for everything we do here at SERC. It feeds into the NERC risk report, it feeds into our outreach, our priorities, our state programs, our assistance programs — so many things.”

The report identified 10 key risks facing entities in SERC’s footprint. Each risk was nominated by stakeholders via a form on SERC’s website and reviewed by the RE’s Reliability Risk Working Group and Technical Committee to determine whether or not to add it to SERC’s risk registry. Their ranking was determined by subject matter experts evaluating each risk across 15 impact areas.

First on the list were supply chain constraints, which include both the risk of vendors introducing vulnerabilities to products used by grid operators — whether intentionally or not — and of delays to projects from shortages of needed materials.

These conditions can arise from a number of factors, the report found, including overreliance on a limited number of suppliers that can be disrupted by cyberattacks, natural disasters and geopolitical tensions. The report said SERC’s Engineering Committee “has identified significant supply chain risks that threaten the stability of the energy sector” and recommended several mitigation strategies, such as diversification of suppliers, enhanced cybersecurity measures and stronger regulatory compliance programs.

Extreme weather came next, which several presenters considered especially appropriate in light of the extreme cold temperatures and record snowfalls that affected much of the Southeastern U.S. the same week as the webinar. Nancy DeLeon, SERC’s senior reliability engineer for situation awareness, noted that while the cold snap was unusual, extreme weather has long been a known risk for the RE.

“We’re located in a place where we do get a lot of extreme weather — extreme colds, extreme heats, hurricanes tornadoes, a lot of thunderstorms, things like that,” DeLeon said.

The report said extreme weather can “pose significant risks to [grid] reliability” by disrupting fuel supplies and telecommunications, limiting situational awareness and causing forced outages of generation and transmission facilities. Additionally, with the grid increasingly reliant on wind and solar generation and severe weather becoming more frequent, renewable resources are uniquely vulnerable to interruption during major events.

Both top risks were labeled as “monitor” in the report, meaning that mitigation plans and guidance already exist. The third highest risk, resource uncertainty, was marked as “manage,” which means that a mitigation plan needs to be developed and implemented.

The resource uncertainty risk also stems from the accelerating shift from traditional thermal generation to renewable resources and the accompanying rise of natural gas as a supplier of reliability services such as system inertia and ramping. SERC said the change to renewables will require “continued improvements in planning approaches” to understand how the behavior of solar and wind facilities contrasts with traditional generators and account for the difference in system planning.

“Through proactive and strategic planning, and continued collaboration, the sector can sustain the reliability and resilience of the [grid] in the SERC footprint,” the report said. “SERC remains committed to driving innovation and preparedness to meet the future demands of a secure and reliable electric grid.”