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Continued progress on ERO regulations
The RCA is moving forward developing rules governing the operation of businesses that would oversee Alaska electrical systems Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska is continuing with the development of regulations for the oversight of electricity reliability organizations, or EROs, in Alaska. However, the regulation development is taking a slightly different route from what the commission had originally envisaged.
The regulations are required for implementation of Senate Bill 123, a statute passed last year enabling RCA to regulate EROs. The initial purpose is to enable implementation of an ERO for the Alaska Railbelt electrical system, to bring a more unified approach to the management and operation of the system. Railbelt electric utilities are in the process of forming the Railbelt Reliability Council, or RRC, a form of ERO. SB 123 set a deadline of July 1 this year for the completion of ERO regulations.
Three dockets Last summer, in the interest of enabling early regulatory clarity for a prospective ERO, such as the RRC, the commission split the regulation development into three separate dockets: one for ERO certification and governance; one for integrated resource planning and large project pre-approval; and one for reliability standards and rules for ERO operation.
The concept was to enable the formal public noticing of regulations developed in each of the dockets in sequence, so that final draft regulations for, in particular, ERO certification and governance, could be published while work was still proceeding on draft regulations in the other dockets. This approach would provide early clarity for a prospective ERO over expectations for successful certification. The hope was to publicly notice governance regulations by late September or early October.
Complications In the event, the development of certification and governance regulations is taking much longer than expected, given the complexities of specifying requirements for appropriately balanced ERO governance and addressing some associated legal issues relating to Alaska company law. During a January 13 RCA meeting Commissioner Antony Scott said that the draft certification and governance regulations need to be reviewed by attorneys from the state Department of Law before the commission continues to make further revisions to the draft, using public input on the regulation proposals.
A further complication has arisen, in that it turns out that there are cross linkages between some of the regulations being developed in the different dockets. During a Feb. 24 public meeting Scott said that, as a consequence, completed draft regulations from each of the three dockets will need to be synchronized with each other before a complete set of formal SB 123 draft regulations can be publicly noticed.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 26 the commission approved a draft version of integrated resource planning and major project pre-approval regulations from the second docket. And from Feb. 23 to 25 the commission held a technical conference, to discuss issues relating to regulations being developed in the third docket.
RRC moving ahead During a Feb. 19 RCA public meeting executives involved the RRC development said that the RRC implementation committee is making much progress in developing the structure of the RRC, with a view to filing an application for ERO certification. They said that the committee is following the regulations being developed by the RCA, but that it is concerned about being able to conform the RRC implementation work products with the eventual regulations within the anticipated remaining time before filing the application.
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