House Passes Casten Led Bills to Bolster Energy Grid Reliability in Face of Extreme Weather
House Passes Casten Led Bills to Bolster Energy Grid Reliability in Face of Extreme Weather
Washington, D.C. — On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills championed by Rep. Sean Casten (IL-06) to bolster electric power grid reliability to withstand increasing and intensifying extreme weather events.
The Reinforcing the Grid Against Extreme Weather Act, first introduced by Rep. Casten, and the Grid Resilience Act, a bill Rep. Casten is an original co-sponsor of, were both passed by the House on Friday as part of the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act.
The Reinforcing the Grid Against Extreme Weather Act (H.R. 8303) would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to establish minimum transfer capability requirements between transmission planning regions. This would provide significant reliability benefits as planning regions would be able to share power in the case of a power emergency. As extreme weather events increase and continue to pose a significant risk to the reliability of the electric grid, this legislation would ensure affordable and dependable energy for ratepayers across the country.
The Grid Resilience Act (H.R. 8311) would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to conduct a joint study on a reliability standard for thermoelectric power plants during droughts. This is in response to findings from the NERC 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment, which found that drought conditions and high heat create heightened reliability risks in the summer. Power plants that use rivers for once-through cooling are impacted by low river levels, causing a potential reduction in output which can contribute to energy shortfalls during peak demand.
“With wildfires, flooding, and heat waves ravaging the country, we have an obligation to increase the reliability of our electric grid and protect Americans against these devastating events fueled by the climate crisis,” said Congressman Casten. “Aimed at providing FERC with the ability to deliver cleaner, cheaper, more reliable energy to families across the United States, these bills help unlock the vast supply of domestic US clean energy resources to fuel our transportation as well as power needs, free up energy for allies around the world to use and help rid them from dependence on Russia and other petrostates.”
"As our nation continues to experience increasingly frequent extreme weather events, expanding the transmission connections between regions is critical. The U.S. currently lacks sufficient transfer capacity between regions to ensure a cost-effective grid that keeps the lights on,” said Gregory Wetstone, American Council on Renewable Energy President and CEO, “Representative Casten’s legislation would go a long way towards solving this issue by requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to promulgate a rule establishing minimum transfer capability requirements between regions, which would reduce power outages and keep costs low for homes and businesses."
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