Energy Department Report: 12 Ways to Prevent Power Outages

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson received on March 14 the department’s Power Outage Study Team final report on electricity outages and system disturbances during the summer of 1999. The report contains the team’s findings and recommendations of appropriate federal actions to help enhance electric reliability, and avoid the types of problems that occurred last summer.

The report states that competition in the electricity industry can save customers money and help with improved reliability. The institutions and practices that provided reliable electric service in the past will need to change along with ongoing economic reforms.

The report makes the following 12 recommendations, each of which includes specific action items for federal consideration:

1. Promoting market-based approaches to ensure reliable electric services;
2. Enabling customer participation in competitive electricity markets;
3. Removing barriers to distributed energy resources;
4. Supporting mandatory reliability standards for bulk-power systems;
5. Supporting reporting and sharing of information on “best practices;”
6. Enhancing emergency preparedness activities for low-probability, high-consequence events on bulk-power systems;
7. Demonstrating federal leadership through promotion of best reliability practices at federal utilities;
8. Conducting public-interest reliability-related research and development consistent with the needs of a restructuring electric industry;
9. Facilitating and empowering regional solutions to the siting of generation and transmission facilities;
10. Promoting public awareness of electric reliability issues;
11. Monitoring and assessing vulnerabilities to electric power system reliability; and
12. Encouraging energy efficiency as a means for enhancing reliability.

Secretary Richardson formed the team, made up of power system experts from the Energy Department and its national research laboratories, as well as universities, following a series of power outages that crippled parts of New York City, Chicago and other communities across the nation during the past summer.

The final report follows an interim report issued in January that described events and findings on six power outages and two additional power disturbances. The team held three technical workshops across the country to invite comment and input on the appropriate federal role to help avoid future power outages. Over 150 individuals attended one or more of the workshops and over 70 entities submitted written comments.

Report of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Power Outage Study Team: Findings and Recommendations to Enhance Reliability from the Summer of 1999, is available on the Internet at: www.policy.energy.gov. Printed copies of the can be obtained from the department’s Office of Public Inquiries by calling 202/586-5575.
From the Daily Regulatory Reporter