Railbelt electric utilities file standards

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

Chugach Electric Association has filed with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska a consistent set of reliability standards for the Alaska Railbelt electricity grid, agreed by all six of the Railbelt electricity utilities and the Alaska Energy Authority. Chugach Electric told the commission that the standards have been drafted for adoption and enforcement by a Railbelt-wide reliability organization.

Currently, the grid operates under two similar but different standards. As part of efforts to unify the operation and management of the grid, the utilities have been working to develop a unified set of standards - they have indicated that, given the operational differences between different sectors of the grid, developing a common standard for spinning reserves, the reserve generation capacity needed to assure continuity of power supplies, has been particularly challenging.

The utilities are also in the process of developing the concept of a Railbelt Reliability Council for oversight of the operation of the grid. There are also other concepts for a grid-wide system operator that would enforce reliability standards, including a concept being put forward by AEA, and a concept encapsulated in a bill proposed by the House Special Committee on Energy.

The RCA has been pushing for unified management and operation of the grid and is particularly concerned that the utilities must adopt a comprehensive, unified set of reliability standards whose use in enforced.

- ALAN BAILEY