NERC report: North American bulk power system retains reliability in face of attacks, weather and resource changes

According to the 2021 State of Reliability report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the continent’s bulk power system is still performing well, despite a series of high profile weather events, attacks, evolving generation resource mixes, and the lingering pandemic.

The report, which acts as an assessment of 2020’s bulk power system performance, showed that even in an era of so much change and uncertainty, outages due to human error and equipment failure continued to decline. The system at large remained stable, even though operators saw an increased need for load shedding — a last resort to maintain grid stability. There was even good news on the pandemic front, as the report’s authors pointed to advanced planning as something that allowed major grid impacts to be avoided.

“Key indicators show that mitigation efforts put in place for critical risks are effectively being addressed,” John Moura, NERC’s director of Reliability Assessment and Performance Analysis, said. “However, the unprecedented stressors in 2020 challenged the system and showed us where the weak links are. It’s clear that the resource and energy adequacy, as well as the increasing exposure to extreme weather conditions, is a priority issue for the industry.”

Some critical items the report noted were that more transmission would be needed to access additional resources within the evolving fuel mix, which requires more to balance supply and demand. Energy adequacy is becoming a serious vulnerability, and supply chains are making the system more vulnerable to cyber risk, furthering the need for swift response from industry and government alike.

Preparedness and maintenance will remain key, as weather events and wildfires seem set to cause more outages than in the past. With this in mind, the report urged the industry to continue improving modeling capabilities, plans, and systems with different resource mixes. Further, it pushed system planners to highlight flexibility during a time of increased retirement for conventional generation.