US government unable to assess reliability of power grid: EIA
Washington (Platts)--7Dec2004
Changes in the US power industry have outpaced the federal government's ability to verify that existing and planned transmission capability is adequate "to keep the lights on," the US Energy Information Administration said in a report Tuesday. The study, "Electricity Transmission in a Restructured Industry: Data Needs for Public Policy Analysis," said the data collection that US agencies, including EIA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, rely on to monitor reliability "have not kept pace with the ascendancy of transmission in a restructuring industry," where power increasingly is flowing "across utility and regional boundaries in response to commercial opportunities." The report added that the power industry's reported plans for assuring reliable grid operation in the future "are not necessarily those analyzed in the power flow analyses that industry does submit to FERC." Further, the report said "investment in the high-voltage grid for metering, monitoring, communications, software and computation is unknown." "Neither the industry nor the government has data adequate to allow rigorous cost-benefit analyses of transmission-related investments to enhance reliability," EIA said. The agency said that much of the information needed to better ascertain the reliability of the grid could be obtained by modifying existing information forms, including high-quality power flow models, that the industry is required to submit to the government. The EIA report also found that FERC's so-called Form 1, which requires power companies to provide capital and operating cost data, provides little information about the "economics" of transmission, in large part because most transmission revenue is bundled in with revenue from retail power sales. Although the report suggested that FERC could require "line-of-business" reporting to separate transmission from other operations, it suggested that changes to existing reporting forms would make the data more "useful for cost and investment (but not financial) analysis." While the report said much of the data needed to evaluate the grid's support of wholesale power markets is already being collected, "the data are not...available for policy analyses." The North American Electric Reliability Council's power flow and curtailment data was "not routinely available for use in assessing how transmission constraints affect wholesale power markets," the report said, recommending the information be consolidated into one database. EIA also said that outside of independent system operators, spot market prices and associated quantities, including inter-regional trade flows "are not available." EIA said that while ISOs have the data they need to assess competition within their areas, outside the ISOs "the government does not have the data necessary to monitor and evaluate the competitive status of wholesale markets. Government can subpoena data in response to clear evidence of anticompetitive behavior or as part of a merger approval, but the subpoena is not a reasonable means of obtaining data for ongoing market monitoring." "Changing and consolidating existing data collections, the report said, "could greatly enhance the data available to federal and state policymakers." These changes, however, would require "long-term, coordinated efforts" across FERC, EIA, the Dept of Energy, Office of Management and Budget, ISOs and possibly NERC, the study said. While new data collections would be "useful to describe wholesale prices and trade flows, congestion, regional costs and revenues, and interconnectino-wde reliability management," the report warned that "the reality is that new collections often are controversial and have long gestations."
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