NEI Nuclear Notes

Matt Wald The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald . Over the past ten years, two of the power grid’s worst ten days were during the polar vortex of January 2014 , and for 2014 alone, four of the top ten were caused by the vortex, according to a new report by the group that enforces reliability standards on the high-voltage grid . Weather-related challenges to the grid can be divided into two categories: the ones that disrupt load and the ones that disrupt generation. Thunderstorms, snowstorms, derechos and similar events that tear down local power lines are in the first category, and extreme temperatures are in the second. The distinction is important because if the power line in your neighborhood is taken out by a snow-covered tree, then it doesn't matter if the power plant is still running, and the system can get by on many fewer power plants as load disappears. ...

The US electric reliability watchdog and the power sector said Thursday that they are working with federal authorities and within the industry to shore up security in the face of a recent federal bulletin about potential threats to private sector utilities. The Department of Homeland Security issued the bulletin on Tuesday. That’s scary. Not that the utility sector is on a heightened alert and doing something about it but that the need is there to do so. The watchdog in this case is the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which oversees the reliability and adequacy of bulk power transmission in North America (meaning the the U.S., Canada and a bit of Mexico). Interestingly, NERC and the Department of Energy released a report last month on just this subject. The report examines three high-impact, low-frequency risks in detail: coordinated cyber, physical, or blended attacks; pandemic illness; and Geomagnetic Disturbances (GMD) and Electromagnetic ...

Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission , made some interesting comments yesterday at a U.S. Energy Association forum . According to the NY Times , Wellinghoff believes that "no new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States" and that "renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands." If only it were that simple... Of the many things I disagreed with from Mr. Wellinghoff's statements, the comments on baseload capacity and the poor analogy of distributed generation are what stuck out most to me. From Wellinghoff: "I think baseload capacity is going to become an anachronism," he said. "Baseload capacity really used to only mean in an economic dispatch, which you dispatch first, what would be the cheapest thing to do. Well, ultimately wind's going to be the cheapest thing to do, so you'll dispatch that first." That is ...

For those who have not heard what the cause was : A Florida Power & Light engineer not following proper procedure was the sole cause of Tuesday's massive power outage that left millions without electricity throughout the state for a few hours, FPL officials said Friday. ... FPL President Armando Olivera said a preliminary investigation found that not one customer would have lost power had proper procedure been followed. The engineer, who Olivera refused to name, disabled two levels of relay protection, while diagnosing a piece of malfunctioning equipment. When the equipment short-circuited, there were no protective measures in place. ... The engineer was working on a piece of equipment that controls voltage at the Flagami substation in West Miami. While he was diagnosing the problem, an arc -- originally thought to be a small fire -- occurred and melted some of the equipment. Since the protective relays had been disabled, there was nothing in place to contain the problem. ... O...

From Reuters : Most people in the United States only think about where electricity comes from when the lights go out suddenly. But unless the antiquated transmission grid is fixed, expensive blackouts that bring modern life to a grinding halt will become ever more common, according to "Lights Out" (Wiley, $27.95), a new book by Jason Makansi. Then again ... The average US electricity customer loses power for more than three hours annually – outages that cost the US economy about $80 billion. That may be about to change. America's power grid has a new cop on the beat, ready to slap stiff fines on power companies that don't meet new national standards for grid reliability. The standards become mandatory on Monday. Reliance on voluntary guidelines and collegial cooperation among power companies is out. Fines of as much as $1 million a day are in – levied by the North American Reliability Corp. (NERC), which is freshly armed with a federal mandate.