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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
November 2017

Vol. 22, No. 47 Week of November 19, 2017

ARCTEC plans reliability organization

Seeking facilitator for formation of Railbelt Reliability Council to oversee reliability standards and integrated resource planning

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

The Alaska Railbelt Cooperative Transmission and Electric Co. has notified the Regulatory Commission of Alaska that it has issued a request for proposal, seeking a facilitator for the formation of a Railbelt Reliability Council for the Alaska Railbelt electricity transmission grid. Although initially aimed at the adoption and enforcement of reliability standards for the grid, the council could eventually morph into becoming an independent or unified system operator for the Railbelt electrical system, ARCTEC told the commission.

In October the Railbelt electricity utilities told the commission that they were consolidating the two existing sets of reliability standards that apply to the grid and moving towards enforcement of unified standards. ARCTEC, with four of the six Railbelt utilities as members, was originally formed to advance the concept of having a system operator for the Railbelt.

Significant progress

The utilities have been making significant progress in pooling their power generation and transmission assets, to minimize the cost of electricity for consumers. Another initiative in the works is the potential formation of a single transmission company to operate the Railbelt power transmissions system. The formation of a single operator to oversee policies and rules and to coordinate the pooling of power on the grid, is a tricky issue involving questions of who should have governance authority over the operator entity.

For this initial foray into the establishment of a unifying authority for the grid, ARCTEC says that the governance structure for the proposed council should include all of the Railbelt utilities and other stakeholders with appropriate technical and financial capability. Potential stakeholders include the RCA, the Alaska Energy Authority, the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Alaska Independent Power Producers Association and regional economic development councils, according to ARCTEC’s request for proposal.

The council’s initial scope of authority would likely include regional electricity grid reliability and regional integrated resource planning. The intent is to develop an agreed governance structure and functional description for the council by March 1, 2018, the request for proposal says.






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