Panel forecasts FERC will require reliability standards
Members of the panel, convened by CES International, the leading provider of power reliability management software, speculated that legislation could be introduced as early as next year to address reliability concerns that have been raised recently by the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
"With utilities moving to a competitive model in a deregulating environment, there are some problems with the grid that are being ignored," said Robert Gustafson, senior utilities industry analyst for Boston-based AMR Research. "We believe that they are going to be forced to pay more attention to reliability than they have in the past."
Joining Gustafson in that conclusion were Rick Bush, editor-in-chief, Transmission and Distribution World; Ethan Cohen, head of the utility and communications practice, Aberdeen Group; Rick Nicholson, vice president META Group EIS, and Ken Geisler, president and CEO of CES International.
The panel unanimously agreed that legislation was inevitable, regardless of the outcome of the still-in-doubt presidential election, and that it would be enacted within three to five years. Cohen, a former U.S. Senate staff member, trumped the prediction: it will happen in the next session of Congress, which begins in January, he said.
The panel was part of the advanCES 2000, a conference of global utility industry leaders and users of CES International's Centricity product, which enables utility companies to manage reliability of their electricity delivery systems and reduce power outage times. The advanCES 2000 agenda included four days of working sessions and presentations designed to facilitate the exchange of best practice ideas in utility operations resource management and real-time customer service. But the presentations by the panel seemed to attract the most attention.
"For any utility, especially the distribution companies that touch electricity customers, there are three basic issues: availability of power, higher quality of power and affordability," said Geisler. "If the utilities do not address these issues on their own, the federal government will step in and address the issues for them."
In her keynote address, Teresa Hansen of Utility Automation magazine said there were many challenges facing utility industry leaders as they struggle to meet the increasing power reliability and quality demands brought on by the emergence of the digital economy.
Gustafson reiterated that point, suggesting that the foremost reason the federal government will impose reliability standards is to maintain economic growth in the country, an endeavor fueled by "improved uptime and quality of power." But he also suggested there were other reasons as well, including national security concerns.
In other presentations at advanCES 2000, speakers addressed such issues as distribution reliability, network operations, outage management and liability, and the impact of a changing regulatory environment on distribution utility strategy and operations. The utility conference also included exhibits featuring the CES Centricity software system and more than a dozen partner solutions, including those of conference sponsors Convergent Group, MDSI and Mincom.
The conference also included presentations of papers and case studies from Consolidated Edison, Northeast Utilities, Cobb (Georgia) EMC, Northern Ireland Electricity, Colorado Springs and Savannah Electric. Savannah Electric also hosted a tour and briefing at its operations center.
Edited by Stephen Heiser