A joint inquiry on the devastating effects of Winter Storm Uri on ERCOT and other Midwest RTOs will “clearly” call for “reforms in multiple areas,” NERC CEO Jim Robb said Wednesday.

Beaming into the Texas Reliability Entity’s Board of Trustees virtual meeting, Robb said the joint FERC-NERC report will be discussed during FERC’s Sept. 23 meeting. The final report will be issued in November.

Robb said he couldn’t discuss specifics because the report is still being developed, but he allowed that one of the central themes is the electric industry’s coordination with the natural gas sector.

“Natural gas is now the critical fuel to ensuring electric reliability, and our mindset hasn’t caught up with that yet,” he said.

Other reports conducted by SPP and various Texas entities have reached a similar conclusion that the lack of coordination with the gas industry resulted in gas facilities being caught up in controlled outages. That further exacerbated fuel-delivery issues as Uri’s historic freezing temperatures shut down gas wellheads and compressor stations and restricted fuel deliveries. (See “Grid Operator Releases Report on Performance During Winter Storm,” SPP Board of Directors/Members Committee Briefs: July 26-27.)

NERC has filed its long-awaited cold weather standard for FERC approval, but that standard is based on the 2018 cold-weather event along the Gulf Coast that affected MISO and SPP.

“We fully anticipate there will be modifications to the cold weather standard,” Robb said.

On Tuesday, NERC released its annual State of Reliability Report on the bulk electric system. The report focuses on system performance trends and emerging reliability risk, the health of the interconnected system and measures the success of NERC’s mitigation activities. (See NERC: Extreme Weather, Resource Changes Cause Mounting Concern.)

While Robb said the report “underscores” cyber and extreme weather risks, it also highlighted the grid’s performance.

“We ought to step back and celebrate the fact the grid performed extremely well, despite operating under pandemic conditions,” he said. “Everything is getting better. That’s a real testament of the industry.”

Robb said Hurricane Laura — which hammered Louisiana and wiped out much of the transmission around Lake Charles — and the California wildfires accounted for much of the report’s negative numbers.

“This shows how one or two extreme events can really change the way the grid preforms and how people experience it. Next year will be another jaw-dropping indicator of that,” he said, referring to February’s winter storms. “Extreme weather is not so common. What’s different now is that the grid really needs to be planned and operated for more tail events than we have in the past.”

Texas RE Steps Up Readiness Work

Texas RE CEO Jim Albright said staff is already stepping up its readiness activities for the coming winter. On Monday, they will convene about 150 generation owners for a private discussion on winter preparations. That will be followed by a Sept. 30 winter weatherization workshop with ERCOT staff.

“We look at this as an opportunity to engage with the industry,” Albright said. Noting parallel work taking place at ERCOT, the [Texas] Public Utility Commission and NERC, he said, “We’re in this transitional period. We’re just trying to balance those [workstreams] and be informed.”

Staff also plans to schedule an event when the federal inquiry into February’s events is released in November.

“We want go out in front of folks and walk through it with them,” General Counsel Derrick Davis said.

Mark Henry, Texas RE’s director of reliability services, said staff has visited 31 generation sites this summer and shared summer readiness tips.

Ransomware Attacks a Growing Threat

Manny Cancel, a senior vice president at NERC and CEO of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC), briefed the board on his organization, which was created in 1999 as a resource center to help members prepare for and reduce cyber and physical security threats to the North American electricity industry.

He said the “volume and velocity” of recent ransomware attacks is “overwhelming.”

“The good news is, we’re providing timely and actionable information,” Cancel said. E-ISAC “discourages paying a ransom,” he said, “but sometimes, that’s not possible.”

His worry? That smaller cooperatives and municipalities don’t have larger companies’ ample resources to counter cyber threats.

PUC’s Glotfelty: ‘No Looking Back’

Other guests during the board meeting included NERC Trustee and Vice-Chair Bob Clarke; Chris Ekoh, interim public counsel for the Office of Public Utility Counsel; and Jimmy Glotfelty, the PUC’s newest member.

“I’ve been drinking out of a fire hose with the events of February and all the dockets here at the commission,” Glotfelty said. “It was so surreal when I got appointed. I was nominated on Friday, sworn in Tuesday, and approved by the [state] Senate on Wednesday. There’s no looking back now.”

Texas RE Chair Tabbed for Another Term

The board’s nominating committee said it has recommended Chair Milton Lee be nominated for another three-year term on the board. Lee’s nomination will be considered in December.

Lee is the only board member whose term is expiring this year.

“There was a robust discussion about how valued Milton Lee is,” Director Suzanne Spaulding, the committee’s chair, said.