Section 1 Key Findings

Reliability Issue Report Cold Weather R0001 Preparedness STATUS: In Development

October 23, 2012 v0.2

Section 1 – Key Findings

Reliability Issue Lack of generator preparedness for cold weather extremes in sub-tropical or near-subtropical climates may result in forced outages, deratings, and failures to start. During wide-area extreme weather events, unexpectedly large amounts of generation may be unavailable within a region or sub-region. Failure to communicate changes in operating status of generation during next-day and real time operations time periods may result in inaccurate Balancing Authority generation/load forecasts. Insufficient availability of intra-regional generation and limits on import transfer capability may result in insufficient generation to serve forecasted load, resulting in load shedding.

Goals and Objectives Goal: Ensure generators prepare for cold weather extremes. Objective 1: Identify guidelines and best practices for cold weather preparedness for Generators Objective 2: Educate generators on these guidelines and best practices.

Success Metrics Decreasing values in the following areas:  Frequency of unexpected loss of generation during cold weather events  % of Generation derates due to cold weather events  Frequency of generator failures during cold weather events  Frequency and magnitude of load shedding during cold weather events

Recommended Risk Strategy Implementation The RISC recommends an approach of education and awareness be used to address this concern:

 We recommend the NERC Operating Committee develop a guideline that assists entities in preparing for cold weather. In order to be useful during the 2012/2013 winter, we suggested to the OC that this guideline be published to the industry no later than December 3, 2012.  We recommend the OC and NERC staff work together to annually remind entities of the need to prepare for cold weather. We believe initially this can be done through the use of Webinars and other approaches. Similarly, in order to be useful during the 2012/2013 winter, we suggested to the OC that the first of these Webinars occur on or before December 14, 2012.  We recommend NERC develop training programs to educate the industry on the OC Guideline and cold-weather best practices. We suggest this training should be delivered annually and commence in Q3, 2013.  We recommend the OC work with NERC and industry to establish a voluntary review process (possibly in collaboration with the NATF or NAGF), through which entities can verify their preparedness. We suggest these reviews could occur annually for some representative number of entities, and commence in Q3, 2013.

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2 Section 2 – Analysis and Support The RISC accepts the analysis enclosed within the nomination. With regard to its recommendation, the RISC believes this particular issue, while important, does not represent a strategic issue to which a significant amount of NERC resources should be dedicated in a Standard development effort. Further, given the financial incentives that already exist for generators to perform during cold weather, the additional reinforcement of a standard imposing financial penalties would likely be ineffective.

Focusing on the root causes of the previous cold weather events, the RISC believes the “cause” of these events is a lack of retaining institutional knowledge and business practices over time, combined with a lack of communication of status information between the GO/GOP and the BA and TOP. Accordingly, the RISC is recommending a strategy focused on removing this loss of knowledge and ensuring the requirements in the existing body of standards are well understood.

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2 Section 3 – Results and Ongoing Performance

Status of Recommendations

Specific deliverables to be determined following Board of Trustees endorsement.

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2 Performance

2016/20 2012/2013 2013/2014 2014/2015 2015/2016 17 Frequency of unexpected loss of generation during cold weather events % of Generation derates due to cold weather events Frequency of generator failures during cold weather events

Frequency of load shedding during cold weather events

Magnitude of load shedding during cold weather events

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2 Change History

Version Number Description Date 0.1 Initial staff draft; Status marked as In Development 10/22/2012 0.2 Second draft; status of recommendations specifics removed; 10/24/2012 reference to standards review removed; fixed typos

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2 Attachment 1 – Original Submission

RRAC RIRT v1.01 R0001 – Cold Weather Preparedness, v0.2