Regulatory Affairs news highlights: March 2025

 

Recent regulatory headlines we’re tracking include:

FERC, NERC to host joint workshop on supply chain risk management

FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) announced that on March 20 from 1 to 5 p.m. (ET), they will be holding a hybrid virtual/in-person workshop on supply chain risk management.

The workshop will focus on FERC’s proposed directive in its September 2024 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require that entities establish steps in supply chain risk management plans to validate the completeness and accuracy of information received from vendors during the procurement process. The aim is to better inform the identification and assessment of supply chain risks associated with vendors’ software, hardware, or services. Additional information on how to attend the workshop and a detailed agenda will be released in the future on the FERC website.

 

House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy discusses increased demand, renewable energy

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy held its first hearing of the 119th Congress on Feb. 5, 2025, titled “Powering America’s Future: Unleashing American Energy.” During the hearing, the chair of the subcommittee, Bob Latta (R-Ohio), recounted previous hearings in prior congressional terms where experts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and other organizations agreed that demand is rising, and the U.S. needs more energy to meet that demand. During the hearing, there was significant discussion of President Donald Trump’s Declaring a National Energy Emergency order, including whether it would decrease energy prices. Several experts testified about America’s current energy production, the role of lawmaking in expanding energy access, and the various types of generation, including nuclear energy and renewable energy sources. A full recording of the hearing is available here.

 

GRID Power Act introduced in House of Representatives

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) introduced the Guaranteeing Reliability through the Interconnection of Dispatchable (GRID) Power Act, a bill designed to improve interconnection queue flexibility and speed the connection of dispatchable generation. The bill would require FERC to initiate a rulemaking to allow transmission providers to submit proposals (with detailed justification and prior public notice and comment) to FERC, to move up dispatchable power projects in the interconnection queue that would help ensure reliability and resource adequacy.

There has been much discussion across the industry about the need to bring on additional generation quickly given rapidly rising energy demand. A companion bill was also introduced in the Senate by Sens. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota) and Todd Young (R-Indiana).

 

FERC issues orders approving PRC-028-1, PRC-002-5, PRC-030-1, and TPL-008-1

On Feb. 20, FERC issued a letter order approving NERC’s proposed definition of Inverter-Based Resource (IBR) for inclusion in the NERC Glossary. The order also approved three new or revised Reliability Standards: PRC-028-1 (Disturbance Monitoring and Reporting Requirements for Inverter-Based resources); PRC-002-5 (Disturbance Monitoring and Reporting Requirements); and PRC-030-1 (Unexpected Inverter-Based Resource Event Mitigation).

Together, the new Reliability Standards help to address disturbance monitoring and data sharing, performance requirements, and post-event performance validation for registered IBRs. FERC also issued a separate order approving TPL-008-1 (Transmission System Planning Performance Requirements for Extreme Temperature Events) and a proposed definition of “extreme temperature assessment” for inclusion in the NERC Glossary. TPL-008-1 focuses on improving how planning coordinators and transmission planners plan for extreme heat and extreme cold weather events and establishes a framework for performing periodic studies of the wide-area impacts on the bulk power system of these extreme weather events.