T&D Grid

“Investing for more reliable, resilient power grids, using the most advanced tools and techniques, must now be considered standard operating procedure for power companies.”

“We are seeing more constraints from a resource perspective. There is a great opportunity to continue to collaborate with our elected officials, state regulators, and economic development state agencies, to improve processes to gain approval for building out necessary infrastructure to connect new customers.”

“We are getting more sophisticated about understanding all factors that go into how and where we make investments. That also helps us defend investments to regulators and others, because we have the science, rigor, and discipline to justify them as prudent.”

“We’ve got over 450 weather stations deployed and take 30 years of data, crunch it, and get a good sense of what the forecast could be. Situational awareness is important because it’s a cost-effective method for getting visibility into the environment and is foundational information for all other mitigation measures.”

“We put effort into the bills, making sure all concerns the legislators had were addressed. We didn’t cross the finish line. We’re looking at what we can do without legislation, what’s under our power. We can ask the utilities to develop a wildfire protection plan.”

“Through EEI and the CEO task force, we’re talking to Congress and the Department of Energy and asking for options that don’t require us to serve as insurers of last resort for all damage associated with wildfire. Now, we are the insurers of a last resort and that’s untenable.”

Conversations with Puget Sound Energy CEO Mary Kipp, Hawaii Public Utilities Commission Chair Leo Asuncion, Pacific Power President Ryan Flynn, Rocky Mountain Power President Dick Garlish, with paintings by PUF’s Paul Kjellander.

The regional power grids are changing rapidly and facing unprecedented challenges. One day in May illustrates interesting dynamics in three regions, those of the California ISO, PJM in the mid-Atlantic, and ERCOT in Texas.

FERC Order 881 was the subject of discussion at a recent IEEE Power & Energy Society T&D Conference, which was attended by POWER Engineers’ Lisa Deppa. She explains here the latest on Order 881 and why it is important to the decarbonization journey.

By increasing the reach of these programs, utilities get greater insight into customer behavior and the ability to tackle distribution-level issues more effectively.