First Railbelt reliability standards OK'd

Alan Bailey

for Petroleum News

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has approved the first tranche of reliability standards developed by the Railbelt Reliability Council for the Railbelt electricity generation and transmission system. The new standards are designed to ensure that interconnections on the high voltage electrical system have the necessary controls to ensure that power supplies remain within required voltage levels and within required levels for the reactive flows of electrical power. The commission has also allowed the RRC to defer the issue of the specification of penalties associated with failures to comply with the standards.

The RRC has said that the new standards have been derived from the equivalent North American Electric Reliability Corp.'s standards and from a previous standard that has been applied in Alaska. The commission said that before submission for approval all standards passed through multiple rounds of public notices and review. All Railbelt electricity utilities participated in the RCA docket for the standards and no utility expressed dissent with what was proposed, the commission said.

"The RRC's robust development process for reliability standards gives us confidence that the proposed reliability standards are just and not unduly discriminatory of preferential," the commission wrote.

The RRC anticipates starting work soon on developing an integrated resource plan for the Railbelt high voltage system, another of the organization's key duties. Meanwhile the organization is continuing work on further reliability standards.

--ALAN BAILEY