NERC’s Summer Reliability Assessment finds ample resources available

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) recently released its 2017 Summer
Reliability Assessment, which found that all areas of the United States have enough resources to meet expected peak electricity demands for this summer.

Anticipated reserve margins, the amount of projected unused electric generating capacity at the time of
peak load, range from just under 15 percent in New England to nearly 29 percent in New York.

Reference margins are reserve margin targets based on an area’s load, generation capacity, and transmission characteristics. They are set by regulatory bodies, states, provinces and independent system operators,
which seek to achieve anticipated reserve margins that surpass their reference margins.

Every region except for the Independent System Operator for New England (ISO-NE) had an anticipated reserve margin that exceeded its reference margin. ISO-NE had an anticipated reserve margin of 14.0 percent, which is slightly lower than its 15.1 percent reference margin.

Another 315 megawatts of prospective resources may become available this summer that are not included in the calculation of anticipated resources. Including these resources increases ISO-NE’s prospective reserve margin to 16.1 percent.

Demand response resources, another important factor in electric reliability, range from 6 percent of total internal demand in the PJM Interconnection and Florida Reliability Coordinating Council to 1 percent in ISO New England.