Transcripts For CSPAN3 Weather And The Electric Power System 20180129

Here shortly, and obvious knows that 7. 9 magnitude earthquake hit off of the coast of alaska and the Pacific Northwest with tsunami warnings for activities that were expect and warnings for the tsunami waves were recalled but i am sure that the sen or the is dealing with items related to and that other h issues. I want to thank the chairman mr. Mcintyre and mr. Walker for being here, and many of the staffs that are going to be hearing that we are back in operation. So we look forward to hearing about the sun jek the subjec reliability. And last year we looked at the reliability of the electric grid in light of the mixing fuel change. We have carefully distinguished on the issues of new items to have renewable renewals and also frequent response and also to adopt resilient metrics that needed to be developed. Fortunately when the secretary perry filed the report as a proposal to furk, i was more alarmed. It was the conclusion of the departments own staff, and it was a transparent attempt in my attempt to prop up the different kinds of energy that are outpaced in the marketplace, and there are many eitems near the proposal and it picked up a few power plants and the fuels stored on site and above all other factor, and they promised full recovery for coal to follow a market model years ago, and the problem is that it would hit billions of consumers with a added cost to multiple independent assessments, and bailing out coal plants just isnt bad policy, but it is breathtaking raid on the consumers pocketbooks and the pga market monitor found that the proposal could double the cost of the wholesale energy cost in the electricity market. So i want to applaud the chairman for rejecting the s secretarys proposal tachlt heart of the rejection is the heart of the consumers and the commission wisely looked at the power act for adjusting electric rates at reasonable, and they had not met the burden under the current rules being unjust and so we could not have added anymore to this defense. It is never more important for furc to maintain the independence, and we hope that it has not given resilience a bad name. The difference of the grids recovery in hurricanes and earthquakes in puerto rico is showing that the items that affect life and quality does deserve attention. And so we are looking at other witness, and she served on the National Academy of the report on the Grid Resilience and i would like to submit that to the organization. And it is going to be what they explored today, and madam chair, thank you for the witnesses to today and calling forward this hearing. My apologies to these witness, and the Committee Members that we had a busy day in alaska and all is well, and i appreciate more than ever the value of thing likes the earthquake and tsunami Early Warning system, and so it is important that they are there and that it is finally operating now that the government is back to order. Last week, we outlined the busy agenda of the hearing and we will maintain the legislation, and nomination, and oversight is a critical part of the role, and we are obligated to operate under our jurisdiction, gauge whether federal policy is helping or hindering improvements in Energy System performance. While it they not have, been u to alaska standards, the cold snow and ice endured by many in the lower 48 especially along the eastern seaboard was notable over the holidays into the new year. While the worst of it occurred over and on the shoulders of a holiday period and didnt reach the extremes felt in the 2014 polar vortex, we did experience a socalled bomb cyclone event. I understand that a bomb cyclone is a cyclone storm system in which the Pressure Drops precipitously in a short period of time. Apparently, these happen relatively often off the northeast coast, but this recent storm was a recordbreaker. With the largest Pressure Drop in a 24hour period since 1976. As such, it presented a kind of informative stress test for the electric power system. Now, ive often said that federal law and policy must enable energy to be affordable, clean, diverse and secursecure. With this hearing, we rush to a subject ive been following keenly since 2010 about how changesctric grid are stressing system reliability and what federal changes may be necessary to address those stresses. The secretary of energys noticed a proposed rule making issued in september and the recent furk order in response were focused on these same issues. In 2014, following the polar vortex, we held a similar hearing to examine challenges to the electric system. I said then that we needed to redouble a properly scaled and continuously improving approach to grid reliability and security. Im pleased to say, to see, that todays testimony shows that there were many Lessons Learned from that extreme weather event. Sfr for example, there appears to be improved coordination between the electric and gas systems. Rtos and furk have reformed market rules and improved practices. Nurk updated its approaches. Thats good news. The bad news is weve not addressed the more difficult and fundamental challenges for electric and Gas Infrastructure. For example, gas Pipeline Infrastructure remains too constra constrained. Broader policy changes are not sufficiently taken into account increasing risks that in future years system operators may have to turn to intentional service interruptions, otherwise known as load shedding or rolling brownouts or blackouts, to manage certain peak periods. One of our witnesses will speak about the situation in new england. Which is some respects could serve as a harbinger of challenges in other parts of our nation. We must ensure that our nations natural gas supply, which is a boone to our economy oand our National Security, can be reliably delivered to a changing marketplace. At the same time, its not clear what the reliability and Economic Impacts will be a grid whose primary electricity resources are less die veshs over time as base load nuclear and coal units continue to retire. Meeting all of these challenges will also strengthen congre competition, should be a shared priority. Providing competition has been a tenet of policy that has enjoyed wide bipartisan support for more than two decades and sould houl remain so. Today well hear from furk and the department of energy and hear from the heads of three regulated entities with quasi regulatory responsibilities, the north American Electricity Reliability Corporation or naerc and no regional organizations, pjm and iso new england. We have a member of the committ science, engineering and medicines with us. I welcome each of you to the committee this morning. Look forward to your testimony. I would ask that you try to limit your test moanthy this morning to about five minutes. Your full statements will be included as part of the record. This morning were joined by the honorable kevin mccintyre. This is the first thyme you him appeared before the committee in your capacity as chairman. We welcome you. The honorable bruce walker is also with us as assistant secretary. The office of electricity delivery and Energy Reliability at the usdoe. Good to see you again, bruce. Mr. Charles baradesco, interim president and ceo for naerc, north American Electric reliability commission. Miss allison clements. Senator cantwell mentioned your contributions. We thank you. Mr. Andrew od, president and ceo. And mr. Gordon van walle, president and ceo of iso new england. Welcome to each of you. Chairman mcintyre, if you would like to begin with your comments this morning. Yi yes, senator, chairman murkowski, Ranking Member cantwell and members of the committee. Thunk you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the performance of the electric system during the recent weather events. I am honored to serve as the chairman of the ferc. Our Commission Takes conspiracily the responsibility that congress entrusted to us. Concerning the reliability, the bulk power system in this country. Were still receiving and reviewing data related to the performance of the bulk power system during the cold weather event thats taken place over the past month. Based on what we know to date, it appears that notwithstanding stress in several regions, overall the bulk power system performed relatively well amid challenging circumstances. Looking forward, we must both learn from this experience and remain vigilant with respect to challenges to the reliability and resilience of the bulk power system. The performance of the bulk power system during the 2014 went event you referred to now commonly known as the polar vortex did provide useful context for understanding the performance of the bulk power system under the most recent winter events of the past month. During the 2014 polar vortex, much of the u. S. Experienced sustained and at times extreme cold weather. The challenges presented by these conditions and high electric demand were compounded by unplanned generator shutdowns of various fuel types. These combined circumstances tested grid reliability and Power Supplies and contributed to high electricity prices. Drawing on that experience, ferc took numerous actions as you have referenced to address reliability and resource performance issues. For example, commission directed regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, or rtos and isos, as we usually call them, to report on fuel assurance issues and the Commission Revised its regulations to enhance coordination between the natural gas and the electric industries in light of the increasing use of natural gas as fuel for electric generation. For certain regions, the Commission Approved capacity capacity market reforms that have intended to increase financial incentives for improved resource performance and to penalize nonperformance or poor performance. The Commission Also approved temporary winter reliability programs in new england. Turning to the winter event Winter Weather events of the past month, it is useful to consider the impact of the recent weather events on both the provision of service and the associated costs of that service. Importantly, there were no significant customer outages that resulted from failures of the bulk power system generators or transmission lines. While there were no significant reliability problems during this recent cold weather event, wholesale Energy Prices were high, reflecting the stress on the system. Higher wholesale Energy Prices that accurately reflect fuel costs and Current System conditions can be beneficial, sending important signals that drive operational and Investment Decisions for both utilities and consumers. We also recognize that higher wholesale Energy Prices are ultimately born by retail customers. So the commission is attentive to the potential of behavior that takes add van tavantage of weather events. Just as the commission and the rtos and isos drew lessons from the polar vortex in 2014 and applied them in ways that better prepared us for this recent cold weather event, we will examine these more recent i vents very carefully and seek to learn from them. Id like to emphasize a few points that the commission made, order issued a couple weeks ago on the issue of resilience more generally, referred to by Ranking Member cantwell in her opening remarks. On january 8th, the commission responded to the proposed rule on grid reliability and resilience pricing submitted to the commission by the secretary of energy. And we initiated a new proceeding to further explore resilience issues beginning with the rtos and the isos. As we stated in our order, we appreciate the secretary reinforcing the importance of the resilience of our bulk power system as an issue that warrants further attention and as we said in our order, prompt attention. The goals of our new proceeding are, first, to develop a common understanding among the commission and industry and others as to what resilience of the bulk power system actually means and requires. Second, to understand how each rto and iso assesses resilience within its geographic footprint. And third, to use this information to evaluate whether Additional Commission action regarding resilience is appropriate at this time. Commission directed each rto and iso to submit within 60 days of our order specific information regarding resilience of the bulk power system within those respective regions, and we invite other interested entities to follile reply comments withi0 days. We expect to review the additional material and promptly decide whether action is warranted. In our january 8th order, the Commission Also recognized that the concept of resilience necessarily involves issues that extend beyond power commissions du jurisdiction such as modernization. For that reason, we encouraged rtos and iso and other interested entities to engage with state regulators and other stakeholders to address resilience at the distribution level and more broadly. I assure you the reliability and ensure of the bulk power system will remain the priority of the f fecrc. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, chairman mcintyre. Assistant secretary walker, welcome. Thank you. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the issue of Grid Resilience during the recent cold weather affecting the northeast United States. Just two months ago i testified before this Committee Secretary perry and the administration remain committed to supporting this restoration. The topic of todays hearing is timely. The resilience and reliability of the Energy Sector are Top Priorities of the secretary and major focus of the department of energy. In fact, the first stud y requested was the staff report of electricity markets and rye liability. The evolution of the wholesale electric markets, effect on grid reliability and resilience as it relates to wholesale energy and capacity markets, compensating specific attributes and connection between regular teto burdens and retirement of base load plants. The last several months have been quite demanding on the Energy Sector. From an extremely active hurricane season, to the 2018 deep freeze, we con frofronted challenges that tested the resilience and reliability of the Energy Infrastructure. Late december 2017 to early january, the northeast saw record low temperatures for several days. However, customer outages were minimal. What was apparent during this weather event was the continued reliance on base Load Generation and Diverse Energy portfolio. Without action that recognizes the essential Reliability Services provided by strategically diversified generation portfolio, we cannot guarantee the resilience of the electric grid. The grids sbintegrity is maintained by fuel sources today especially with onsite fuel capabilities. The real question is whether or not this diversity will be here tomorrow. Resilience has become more important than ever as major parts of our economy are totally dependent on electricity. Even momentarily disruptions and power quality cab result n res h losses. With this process of change likely to continue for many years. Keeping the light on during this transformation will require unprecedented collaboration amongst many parties. D. O. E. Is committed to work with ferc and regional rtos and isos to achieve this mission. Stakeholders are faces multiple connected issues. With growing assets stressed, integration of increasing amounts of Energy Resources, consumer participation, dynamic markets, increasing cyber over the next century. Today, the marketplace rather than the engineering principles focused on building and main dayiday i maintaining an Energy System is driving the design of the system. However, it is clear, we need an indepth in order to know how to best modify existing market structures or, and or build kne resiliency standards into the system. D. O. E. Undertake an analysis that integrates. It also fills any gaps and harm onnize iz onizes various earfforts at the same levels p. M. Im taking the opportunity to make my position clear. I believe building this rezil yancey model should be the top thing for d. O. E. Oer the coverg heres as does the leadership of the department of energy. To address challenges posed by the events of the recent cold snap and infrastructure issues, its critical for us to be proactive, cultivate an ecosystem of resilience, network of producers, distributorsing regular, vent vendors and partners. D. O. E. Continues to partner with states, local governments and other stakeholders to quickly identify threats to develop indepth strategies to mitigate those threats and rapidly respond to any disruption. Resilience is not a onetime activity by a hasnt. Not something that can be done in 24 to 48 hours before an event. Approaching our Energy Sector resulting from investments made today. In conclusion, were faced with various threats that continually become more frequent land impactful. Accordingly, we need to build upon the reliable system we have today, realize from the hard work of ferc and the rtos and isos to make them more resilient to stave the deleterious effects of these present and real threats. The nearterm concern is that Energy Markets are significantly driving the investments made in generation sources throughout the nation. Most of these investments are made to direct dispatch issues within specific regiones. This resulted in an overreliance in some instances and less costly fuel. In this case today, natural gas. Lack of a comprehensive integrated process to drive appropriate investments to improve resiliency that take into account Energy System interdependencies, Critical Infrastructure suspe, as well as affordability, increases the risk of a compromised Energy Infrastructure. And thus the security of this nation. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, assistant secretary. Appreciate your words. Thank you. Welcome. Chairmthank you for holding s hearing. Im the interim ceo and president of nearc designated by ferk. In addition to developing and enforcing mandatory reliability standards for the bulk power system, ferk continually assesses reliability and monitor system operations including in new england and the midatlantic. My testimony covers four points. Nercs monitoring of the bulk power system and work with stakeholders, industry and government, performance of the system during the recent extreme cold weather, how nearc fosters a Continuous Learning environment to continue reliability and recommendations based on naercs relight assessments. For naerc, Severe Weather is among other things an opportunity to learn from events to improve reliability for the future. Stress on the system points to reliability that should be addressed. Our eyes and ears on the system and an important part of this process. On a daily basis, we continuo continuously monitor operations on the grid working with naercs regional entities, reliability coordinators, transmission operators and generators. In conjunction with naercs entities we analyze system disturbances that impact or could impact reliability. In turn, this information is shared with industry operators, ferc and d. O. E. In short, these activities provide daily visibility into the system and actionable infrastructure t information to improve reliability. Naerc operates on an elevated basis. Throughout the severe cold weather period we held talks with affected areas and gathered information from the reliability coordinators such as iso new england and pjm about concerns and issues associated with the impending storm. Multiple coordination calls were held daily with regional ech entities and ferc staff to understand fuel levels, natural gas availability and other factors such as fuel storage and replenishment plans as well as dual fuel capabilities. During the extreme cold, the primary challenge was reliably serving electricity demand. To manage the system, reliability coordinators implemented conservative operati operations, emergency procedures and began heightened planning, communications and preparation. Plout througho throughout, the bulk power system remained stable and reliab reliable. Adequate flexibility and backup fuel was key to meeting increased electricity demand. All forms of generation contributed to serving load. New england experienced perhaps the greatest stress to the system. The region experienced increased use of fuel oil for generation due to high Natural Gas Prices combined with recordsetting consumption of natural gas for heating and other uses. Resupply of depleted oil inve inventory was delayed. Finally the loss due to a transmission outage removed megawatts of base Load Generation for several days but, again, throughout all of this in new engla new england and elsewhere, there was no loss of load. Base ed on the information we reviewed to date, were seeing improved performance this winins severi severity. Naercs report analyzing the polar vortex underscores the need for thorough and sustained winter preparation, close coordination and communication between generator and system operators and reliable fuel supply. Naerc and the regions in close coordination with industry stakeholders conduct annual workshops and webinars concerning Winter Weather preparation, provide Lessons Learned and share good energy practices. The regional entities are important to naercs work, the Reliability First Corporation whose foot priprint includes th midatlantic region. Generating facilities that have experienced freezing or cold weather related issues during prior winters and new generating facilities. Helped remedy winter challenges and share Lessons Learned thereby contributing to improved performance. While the recent extreme cold weather period was less severe than the 2014 polar vortex, observations from both events point to four recommendations that naerc makes in recent reliability assessments. First, reliable and assured fuel supply is essential to electric reliability. Naerc recommends that market operators develop additional rules or incentives to encourage increased fuel security, particularly during winter months. Policy should also promote reliable natural gas supply and transportation. Second, generator owners and operators should maintain and test backup fuel operabiliperao. Third, backup generation raises a potential need for expeditious consideration of air permit waivers. Finally, during the extreme cold, a diverse generation mix, flexible fuel resources and backup fuel for key to meeting incre increased electricity demand. Nae. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Berardesco. Miss cleclements. Welcome. Thank you, good morning. Thank you, and good morning, chairman murkowski, Ranking Member cantwell and distinguished members of the committee. I am president of good grid, a firm that specializes in Energy Policy and law. In 2016 to 2017 i served on the National Academies of science, engine engineers, committee. While i will talk about the reports findings, the views i express today are my own and not the committees. The National Dialogue about resilience comes at a critical moment. The National Academys report knows the u. S. Electricity grid is increasely vulnerable to the risk of cyber and physical attack and increased duration of hurricanes, blizzards, floods and other extreme weather events caused by climate change. The hurricanes you mentioned, senator cantwell, in your remarks provide the most vivid examples of the health and safety impacts that prolonged electricity outages can have on our population, especially our already most vulnerable communities. Natural disasters reportedly cost 306 billion in 2017 mockimock i making it by far the most expensive Natural Disaster year on record the ability to withstand the magnitude and duration of a disruptive event. Importantly, resilience is at its core a transmission and Distribution System concept and not one that is specifically focused on Power Generation types. We must distinguish between resilience and reliability, as you mentioned. Grid reliability is ensuring that enough generation and transmission exists to satisfy all customers electricity needs and avoiding blackouts if a line or plant goes down. Implementing reliability rules is certainly complex, the concept, itself, is relatively straightforward and amenable to standards for measuring its efficiency. Resilien resilience, separately, has emerged with this massive new risk brought on by the threat of attack and impacts of climate change. Although the unpredictable nature of the threats like from this mornings canceled sue n e tsunami warning. However, existing naerc and regional standards for reliability provide resilience benefit. Recent winter conditions have three takeaways. First, the Transmission System is reliable. Weve already heard this. Incorporating lessons learning from the 2014 polar vortex, rtos reliably managed unexpected outages during the bomb cyclone like the shutdown of the Nuclear Plant in new england. Before we rush to establish resilience rules for the Transmission System, we should determine what markets, planning, and operations protocols already do in terms of supporting resilient and whether additional metrics are necessary. The National Academys report cautions about the difficulties of creating costeffective and nonredundant rules for unpredictable and varied resilience needs. This committee can support the efforts that chairman mcintyre described at ferc on the resilience front. Second, efforts to ensure resilience should focus on protecting vulnerable communities and ensuring access to hospitals, fire stations and other Critical Services. Despite the bulk system reliability in the last month, 80,000 homes and businesses had little comfort when they lost power during the bomb cyclone. To tackle enduse resilience needs where people are affected, we depend on resilience planning and Emergency Preparedness at the local and state level. Proactive congressional support outlined in the National Academys report, especially by a Public Private partnerships, can go a long way in supporting this planning and improving resilience. Third, Renewable Energy and distributed Energy Resources are critical components of a reliable grid. The bomb cyclone and the 2014 polar vortex affirmed wind powers role as a critical cold weather reliability resource. Wind power performed well above its allotted capacity values and did not go offline, helping to avoid, generally, helping to avoid price spikes and other blackouts. Distributed Energy Resources, especially customers getting paid to reduce their power use, can provide significant contributions to extreme weather reliability as well. This was demonstrated during the polar vortex in pjm, where nearly 3,000 megawatts of voluntary demand reduction played a key reliability role. Unfortunately, turcurrent iso n england pgm rules do not provide under these conditions and did not facilitate significant economic demand response, this month, to my understanding. These takeaways affirm the value of competitive wholesale markets and fercs tradition of Technology Neutral support for these markets. With the d. O. E. s proposed note behind us,thy committee should be wary of other supposed inmarket proposals sbebd inten sustain Power Generation. At this critical moment and through smart resilience policy, this committee has a strong opportunity to support a clean, reliability and Affordable Energy future. Thank you. Thank you, miss clements. Mr. At, welcome to the committee. Thank you, chairman murkowski, Ranking Member cant jb we cantwell and other members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of you about pgms experience during the recent cold snap from december 27th to january 7th. I wish to offer our perspective on activities we need to engage in in the future to ensure our nations electric infrastructure remains reliable and rezsilient and met efficiently, fairly and Cost Effectively. As i note in my testimony, were a ferc regulated Organization Serving all or paurts of 13 states plus the district of columbia. We have a population of 65 million people. So obviously the reliability of the grid is job one for us. During recent cold weather, we experienced three of our top ten winter peak demand days of all time. Overall the grid and generation fleet performed very well. We had very sustained High Performance throughout the cold snap. This cold snap was actually prolonged as compared to the polar vortex which was a much shorter deeper cold. This cold snap was much more prolonged and were dependent on the prolonged improve ed performance. With the support of ferc, we instituted reforms in our capacity regarding paid for performance based on the liste s Lessons Learned from the polar vortex. We did see cig cabotsignificant improved performance during this cold weather event. Coal fire generation, gas fire generation, Nuclear Generation, Renewable Generation performed better in this cold weather event than in polar vortex. And the improvement was based on our Lessons Learned imfroouchlts improvements and investments back in to ensure they perform well. I can ensure you the grid is reliability today, our work is not done. We certainly cannot become complacent. We need to look at certain initiatives to undertake and certainly pjm has been undertaking those initial tives to look at the resilience of the grid, how were king to going te the robustness and resilience of are the grid into the future. We have to plan the grid with an eye toward resilience, go beyond the traditional criteria, need to operate the grid looking at increased threats a s and also at recovery of the grid, should something happen, we need to be able to bounce back quickly. Those are the types of things we look at. I want to also bring to this committees attention some of the broader initiatives well be actually working in partnership with the new ferc chairman as we go through the process of the docket that they opened as he mentioned. One of the most important things we have been focused on is how does our electricity market actually compensate for resources that are providing Reliability Services . We proposed key reforms in price formation. I want to spend a little bit of time explaning what that means for that committee and for ferc as a whole. Just to be clear, the generating units we call upon, they get paid. They recover their offers and costs and certainly are not uncompensated. But at times what we find is the total cost of operation of these units to provide reliable power in each day, they dont necessarily get the moneys in the market. Sometimes the market price doesnt reflect the fact theyre online and running, therefore, we have to compensate them through an out of market payment. To put it in perspective, in the recent cold snap, normally the out of market payments are about 500,000 a day for us which is a very small number compared to the total cost of electricity. The cold snap, we saw that increase fairly dramatically to 4 million, sometimes 6 million a day. What that shows is, we are running those units to provide reliability to the grid. The fact they are running isnt reflected in the price of electrici electricity. They get paid but theyre not seeing it in the price. Therefore, when they go to sell the electricity forward, theyre selling it at a discount, to show they werent on to serve customers reliably in the cold snap. Thats the issue we have to address, thats the issue that all resources will benefit from whether coal fire resources, gas fire resources. If we get the price right, all these resources wi s will see t dollar value and reliability that theyre proposing. Thats what we want to engage in is that conversation. What we really need, there are so many things we need to address, we need to put time s discipline. Were working with ferc to put time disciplines on these to address these in a timely manner. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Ott. Mr. Van welie. Thank you so much for the opportunity to appear before you this morning. In 2013, i appeared before this committee to highlight a growing concern in new england which was we were becoming more dependent on natural gas fired Power Generation without the region making the investment in the natural Gas Infrastructure to supply the fuel to those generators. And since that time, weve continued to express our concern over the lack ofregion. We also highlighted the possibility that both wholesale Energy Prices and emissions would rise when extreme weather results in natural gas pipeline restraints. In late december and early january, we experienced impacts of the current fuel constraints as bitter cold temperatures drove an increase in demand for natural gas in the region. Weve known for several years when it gets cold the region does not have sufficient Gas Infrastructure to meet demand for both home heating and Power Generation. Constrain pipelines result in substantially higher Natural Gas Prices causing gas to be priced out of the market. As a result, the bulk of the Replacement Energy was provided by burning oil. Either through steamgenerated burning oil or fuel units switching from gas to oil. These circumstances raised reliability challenges. First, a high burn rate for oil fired generatijegeneratjegenero inventory and needs to be replaced. However, in a snow or ice event, replenishment can be difficult or even impossible. Second, emission regulations limit the run time on oilfired genera generators. Finally the fuel constraints and rapid completion of the oil decrease the potential reliability consequences of a large transmission or generator outage during an extend cold weather evented. Commit other resources into the market in order to manage the fuel inventory through the tail end of the extreme weather event. So far this winter weve been fortunate not to experience major contingencies that we could not handle and the bulk power system operated reliably. That said, we know winter is far from over and we will continue to carefully monitor regional fuel availability. Regardless of the outcome of the remainder of the winter, i believe the last few weeks validate our concerns and underscore the importance of a study that we released last week. In late 2016, we embarked on a study that we call the operat n operational fuel security analysis to improve the regions understanding of the reliability risks stemming from the lack of fuel security. Our recent experience leads us to the conclusion that no new incremental Gas Infrastructure will be built to serve Power Generation, therefore, the study does not assume the buildout of additional gas supply infrastructure for pow eer generation. We exam conditioned 23 different scenarios to analyze whether or not enough fuel would be available to meet demand, nongas fired resources or outages of Critical Resources and infrastructure on the system. The analysis are that Energy Shortfalls due to inadequate fuel would occur with almost every future fuel mix scenario requiring frequent use of emergency actions including load sharing to protect grid reliability. Will discuss results of this analysis with stakeholders, policymakers, and regulators in the region throughout 2018 to understand the level of fuel security risks and hopefully determine what level of risks the region and the grid operator should accept. It will be costly to remedy these fuel security challenges. However, the alternative is negative impacts on system reliability, chronic price spikes during cold weather, higher emissions when its more economic to burn oil and natural gas and the possibility of further interventions by the iso into the market to delay the Critical Resources. Wholesale markets and the tra transformation of new englands bulk power system have resulted in significant economic and environmental benefits to the region. However, the fuel security difficulties are real. And they are significant. If were able to meet these challenges, i think it will result in a more reliable, efficient, clean power grid benefiting the entire regioregi. I appreciate your committees focus on this important matter and look forward to any questions that you might have. Thank you, mr. Van welie. Appreciate it. Appreciate the testimony of each of you this morning. Senator manchin indicated hes got a pressing thing somewhere else and asked very politely, so im going to yield my time. You may take the first question. I begged. I begged. I want to thank chairman murkowski, thank you so much. My dear friend, Ranking Member cantwell for allowing me to have this opportunity, but also for this hearing. Full disclaimer, West Virginia, as you know, has been a heavy lifting state for a long time. Were very blessed and very pleased to provide the energy the countrys needed. Starting way back when for building, making the steel to build the ships that defends our country. So were very proud of the energy the energy part that we play in this great nation. With that, i think you all know that im an allin Energy Portfolio, the state of West Virginia is, too, even though coal has been a dominant factor. Now that the shale has come on so strong and utica and rogersville. Weve been blessed and are going to be able to help the country for many years to come. Ive been vocal about ensuring the reliability of our grid for some years since the polar vortex of 2014 which you alluded it and the recent cold period we hit. I supported the recent department of energy grid study and subsequent study by ferc. Ive been asking questions in this committee for some time, will continue to do so particularly because we continue to see coal go offline. Over the most recent deep freeze of the bomb cyclone as many are calling it, the grid performed well. I think you all recognized that. I applaud each of you and your role, particularly you, mr. Ott, in staying vigilant to make sure West Virginia homes stay warm and lights stayed on since pjm is over West Virginia. I want to stress three points. We need to stay vigilant because coalfired perform well during the latest cold snap, yet many plants are fighting to survive. We need to better protect consumers from the shock and hardship of high electric bills when these events happen and West Virginia bills has my colleague senator capitoe will tell you have risen exorbitantly in a very short period of time. No fall of its own. It is truly hard to know whether our grid is actually resilient or not. For those people who believe we can do without fossil completely, you know, i want us all to be completely honest and accurate with them, we cant. Maybe that day will come in the future. Its not here. And for what period of time and how soon that will happen, i dont know. I want to make sure we can provide what this country needs immediately and now and continue to do so. If i can start with you, mr. Mcintyre and go down, ask one question, what would this country have done without the backup of coalfired plants in the polar vortex and also this last bomb cyclone, if you will . And what critical position would it put our country, if any, so we can put back to rest and find out how we can stabilize and keep coal vibrant so its there for the rezsilience and dependability miss kthis countr needs . It coal did, as you heard from a couple witnesses here performed well alongside the question im asking, would the system have been able to be flexible enough to provide the energy we needed during these periods of time . I think in this recent weather event, we wouldnt have seen any widespread outages absent coal. That said, coal was the key contributor. It wasnt exempt from operational problems. There were some issues as i understand it with frozen coal piles on certain sites and so on, but it was no question i share your overall view that all of the above needs to be our philosophy of the different types coal needs to have a place absolutely. Mr. Walker . Yes, sir, thank you for the question. A little bit of a nuance, whether or not we could or should survive without coal. I think. There are sop peopme people think we should. I think theyre wrong. . The evolution of the grid inextricably tied together the vast Energy Systems throughout the United States, coal, natural gas, oil insomuch as what weve done is put ourselves in position where we now have more infrastructure to have to protect. To ensure the safe and reliable distribution of bulk power and so, you know, coal did play an important part here. On average, it presented and provided 38 of the load during this event. I think that 38 if it wasnt available, would have been a serious problem. The markets would have met the need with just simply much higher resources. But the point im trying to make, perhaps not well, is that when we start relying on those other resources, things like nooch r natural gas and oil, we increase our exposure. The Critical Infrastructure in the country is not the coal sitting at a plant or Nuclear Facility where ive got the nuclear fuel there. I have to rely on thousands of miles of pipeline or Transportation Systems to get oil to locations. So the challenge to manage this, particularly in the facing the threats we have today with mostly physical and Cyber Security, really, really should give us pause to step back and think about the diversity of the mix and whether or not we could ever get rid of oil, i think the better for us is should we get rid of oil . Because it does or coal, rather. Im not worried about oil. Each one of those have certain unique characteristics that are very important. I apologize for that pop page 86 of the report, theres a chart that defines the different values that different types of generation add. Its really what we have an opportunity Going Forward with, i look forward to working with ferc and respective rtos, is finding the optimal mix that gives us the diversity for the resiliency and minimizes our exposure from the cyber and physical threats we face today. I know my time is up. Can i ask mr. Ott, pjm, hes responsible for delivering the 56 million, i think, was it 56 million . You are pressing your luck here this morning. Mr. Ott . Ill make it very short. The reality is, again, for this past event, 45,000 megawatts of the electricity we delivered which is 40 or more was coal fired. We could not have served customers without the coalfired resources. Thats the reality. The point is are the prices reflecting the fact that those resources are running . My answer is no, its not, we need to fix that. Clearly need it for now. The question is, how does it transition . Clearly some coal plants dont run, they never run. They dont produce electricity. Theyre just hanging on. They sould go. The ones running online every day to serve customers should be reflected in the price. We need those. Some can go. Some have to stay. Thank you, all. Thank you, madam chairman, for being such considerate, kind. Its a new day. Senator cantwell . Thank you, madam chair. Mr. Walker, obviously, youve heard some of the recommendations on resiliency. Which one of those ideas in the report stand out to you as good things to implement . I think the position that ferc has talken in reestablishing what was previously the noper, in bringing the rtos and isos together to evaluate the resiliency on their respective s systems will provide an excellent baseline. Ive had the opportunity to meet with mr. Van welie and go over his new england report and look at the report that was done by pjm with the voeler vortex. Those are two fantastic baseline analysis that will enable ferc, doe, the rtos and isos to move forward with having a fundamental understanding of where the interdependencies are on the system so we can actually build a better and resilient system informed by where the actual risk is and not the markets. Well, i appreciate your comments about first of all compromised infrastructure and Cyber Security. I mean, given the quadrennial review, thats where it said we should be spending our attention. Im reminded of this debate we had in this committee in 2015 about just that very issue where oil and coal were competing for rail supremacy, i g euess, is t right way to say it and definitely leapt north probably say upper midwest, utilities without their ability to serve their customers simply because of congestion. Sot dynamic is changing, so i appreciate miss clements reports and the recommendations of those reports because youre citing the changing nature of economics. And the challenges that that delivers to the utilities and to those who regulate the utilities and that is why chairman mcintyre, im so glad that you guys resisted, you know, what i thought was undue political pressure on the noper to try to force a bailout. I know that last week, a commissioner filed an exparty notice about first energy, a coal plant transfer. I think that was the right thing for him to do. The news was troubling to me because it said to me there were those who were trying to influence ferc on a political aspect, instead of the thorny Economic Issues at stake here. I dont what do you plan to continue to do to make sure ferc is an indent agency and i give context, when enron manipulated the Energy Markets, no one in my state understood who or what ferc was. After that, its become a household word. They know its those who protect them from being gouged unfairly on Energy Prices. Something so important to the economy of the northwest. Yes, thank you for the question, senator. The independence of ferc as an agency, as a federal agency, is essential to first of all, its that way by design. Statutorily in its construction. And its very important to me, personally, as i stated here at my confirmation hearing. And i intend to do my utmost to ensure that it lives up to that independence. In this particular instance, im delighted that we had a 50 vote reflected in our january 8th order. As you know, that is that reflects a bipartisan commission, republicans to democrats, and im so pleased we were able to see a kind of a common path forward in terms of pursuing this very important issue of resilience. So youll make sure that politics stays out of it . Thus far, honestly, it hasnt been a problem. I have not personally felt any undue influence, any efforts to affect my decision yn making. I would expect that to continue. Great. Thank you. Miss clements, about the northeast and getting more supply . A lot of attention has been focused on increasing natural gas. What are some of the other options . I understand the supply. What do you think are some of the other solutions for the region for, you know, for reliance and resilience . Thank you for the question, senator. I think theres a couple of realities that we have to start with when we answer that question. And one is that this transition toward different resource mix, one that has low marginal costs, free fuel from the sun and the wind as a predominant choice on the parts of communities, on the parts of companies, on the parts of citizens, is already under way. Its already happening. And what the grid operators have always done, as the energy mix has transitioned over time, from back in the 50s all the way up until today is manage that transition. Very well. And so the idea that this new set of resources coming on cant be reliable is a false place to start. And the last reality, to inform the answer to your question, is that fuel diversity is one aspect of a resilient grid and of a reliable grid. Its not the only aspect. When youre looking at the fuel security report that just dgot released from new england, its a great input into what is the standard Regional Planning practices for regional transmission organizations and integrated system operators. Its a piece. It showed 23 different scenarios. The assumptions that are included in the report have yet to be vetted through the stakeholder process. And certainly there are views by different stakeholders on whether or not those are the correct asunassumptions. The cheapest most effective resource doesnt look at Energy Storage or any of those other options. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Senator. Thank you very much, madam chairman. Mr. Mcintyre, wyoming is the nations leading coal and uranium producing state. The industry is responsible for thousands of wyoming jobs, billions in h state and local government revenues. Coal and uranium also play a Critical Role in the electric grid reliability and resilience. So during this recent cold snap, coalfired nuclear Power Generation resources were critical to meeting the electricity demand during the most extreme conditions. So im concerned about both the Economic Impact and the electric reliability impact of the continued retirement of these vital resources across the country. As ferc deals with this grid resiliency question, is the commission going to evaluate pricing of reliability and resiliency in terms of the attributes of coal and Nuclear Resources . Thank you for the questions, senator. I dont think were doing a complete job if we dont take that into account. So weve been fairly fairly broad in h the range of the questions that we have put to the boots on the ground, which are the rtos and isos, and we need them to give us their best informed views on not only the operational aspects of keeping the lights on as we say, but also what is needed from a market standpoint since they run the organized markets and respective foot prohibprints as. Whats needed to ensure resources that are, indeed, contributing resilience benefits to our grid are properly compensated. Following up on that both for mr. Van welie and you, mr. Ott, to weigh in as well, so data from the department of energy shows new england was heavily reliability on base load coal and Nuclear Generation during this recent cold snap. Specifically the data shows at the peak of the cold snap, coalfired generation accounted for 7 of the dispatched capacity, despite being only 2. 6 of installed capacity in the region. Really called upon to perform. Additionally, Nuclear Generation accounted for 23 of dispatched capacity, despite being only 12 of the installed capacity. So isnt it fair to conclude that when your region needed power the most, it was the reliability coal and Nuclear Power plants that were necessary to keep the lights on . Well, i think coal and oil definitely, coal and nuclear definitely contributed. I think the prospect for coal in new england is limited. The two coalfired power stations left on the system, one of which will retire fairly soon, we have four nuclear reactors, one of which will retire soon. And, you know, what was surprising to us was 35 of the energy was coming from oil burn in the region, and many f o those oil units are 40 years old. So i think the issue for us in new england is that we are definitely transitioning to a different power system as the region strives to decarbonize. By definition, we have to reduce the amount of fossil fuel burnt in the region. The question is, whats the game plan looking forward in terms to do so reliably . And the idea behind the study is to demonstrate the consequences of doing nothing in in the first instance, which we think are seve severe, and to lay out to policymakers the various paths forward. I think were looking forward to engaging a conversation on how best to orchestrate that transition. Mr. Ott, would you like to add anything about pjms experience . Yes, sir. Certainly from pjms experience, of course, we have a much bigger proportion of our total resource mix being coal and nuclear, and, in fact, during this recent cold weather eve event, obviously more than half of the total supply was coal and nuclear, and certainly, to be clear, we couldnt survive without gas, we couldnt survive without coal, we couldnt survive without nuclear. We need them all in the moment. Think the key, what were focused on, is the key is each of these bring to the table reliability characteristics. Each of these were online when we needed them t. The point was as i made in my opening comments, the pricing doesnt always reflect that, therefore, when they sell their energy forward, the fact they were on for reliability during the cold weather isnt reflected in the forward price. Thats unfair. It puts them at a disadvantage. We need to fix it. I think really this debate over there are certain coal plants, frankly, that are old, didnt run much, didnt run much during this period. Those need to retire. The ones online running every day, we need to keep them. Thats the reality. Are there specific actions you might recommend ferc take to ensure base load coal and nuclearfired generation resources are paid for the value they bring to the grid . Certainly. We discussed that with ferc and certainly well continue the discussion with the chairman in part of this due docket. It really focuses on the Energy Price Formation that we just discussed in saying we really need to take a hard look at that. Ferc had already looked at the fast start pricing and the phenomena im describing, it wont affect that. We need to look at the pricing related to these types of events where its not the resources that are flexible moving around, its the ones that are online and serving customers we need to address. Thank you, madam chairman. . Thank you, senator. Senator smith . Thank you, madam, chair, for organizing this important hearing. I appreciated reading your testimony. Sorry i missed your comments here today. Its apropos because minnesota is this morning digging out from a major snow event. In minnesota, that means a lot of snow, not a little bit of snow. Its uppermost on my mind about the impact of dangerous weather events on sort of the resilience of the whole community. So i really appreciate how important this is to all come together. Last week, we heard in this committee from the International Energy Agency Director about Renewable Energy and renewable, how Renewable Energy like wind and solar is going to be the lowest cost new generation around the world within maybe the next ten years. And also how Energy Storage costs are dropping as well. So id be very interested in hearing from this panel about how you think these changes will affect the grid, the reliability and the resilience of the grid, and it seems to me that diversifying would contribute to that, but id be very interested to know what your perspectives are on this. Really, anybody. Ill jump in briefly first, senator. Say, again, welcome to washington. Renewable generation is already clearly in the column of Success Story and gets better every year. And it is contributing reliably to the satisfaction of our nations electricity needs today and i expect that trend to continue. It performs well during harsh weather as we heard, including improved performance of wind resources in cold weather conditions. That said, its still the case that it presents operational challenges in that the wind isnt always blowing and sun isnt always shining. That prevents realities to it. I think Energy Storage, your question referenced also, will be will be something that is will advance the ball significantly towards addressing that. Its not so much today at least in my view compensation issue but we need the technology to take the next step. The picture of that side of the industry is good already and improving. Thank you for the comment. I would note the diversity you speak to does in fact add to the capability to provide resilient power. I think in particular the integration of the renewables provides strategic use of those resources to meet certain demands and certain requirements and certain areas that they really can add a tremendous level of capability. That being said, storage as i noted in my confirmation hearing, i consider the holy grail of the electric system. And that being said it is one of the top five goals in my department to focus on moving grid mega watt scale storage forward to integrate that as a resource and help enable the integration of renewables and other resources to be key parts of our resilient grid. Maybe i could follow up with mrs. Clements on this. What role do you see understand efficiency and you have talked some about demand response play in resilience. In minnesota we had success winterizing homes to take some of the pressure off the grid. Id be interested in hearing your thoughts on that. Thanks for the question. Energy efficiency is the most underrated resource we have, its the cheapest by far. We have been talking about it for a long time. It is not as exciting as new but the potential is still high. A different National Academy suggests on the magnitude 25 to 30 reductions are available still. In the states that have pursued as a policy matter, all Cost Effective Energy Efficiency, they are ticking down decreases in total demand at the level of 3 a year. Together with other resources, produced 12,000 mega watts of Power Resources and power you dont need in certain instances, are really exciting. I think three things about distributor Energy Resources in addition to bringing down the numbers of megawatts, they provide the flexibility to integrate the high penetrations of this lowest cost Renewable Energy potential that you describe. And they can provide the flexibility. And finally, they are a great resilience resource if you think about the storage during hurricane sandy, when microgrids were able to island themselves and provide power at hospitals and fire stations, thats a real opportunity on the resilience side. I think the potential is tremendous and thats where we should start. Senator decap toe. Thank you, madam chair and the panel. This is of very interest to me being the other senator from West Virginia and coal obviously important part of our not just our economy but as senator manchin said proud of the history of Energy Production weve had in our state. We also have the Marcellus Shale Development which is exciting. Just a quick question, mr. Ott, mr. Van wheelie, did i get it right . He mentioned how many retiring nuclear and coal plants will be in his area. What is that figure for pjm until 2020 . We have one nuclear station, 620 Megawatt Nuclear station scheduled to retire coming up before 2020. As far as coal plants, weve expressed like 20,000 megawatts previously for the next few years, probably in the 4,000 range of announced. There could be more. Which is 17 different units, thats what i have here . That realm. But again, they havent some of them have not formally announced and some have formally announced. There are some having concerns financially, but as far as formally announcing it, its less than that. At peak load during the cold snap, natural gas generators provided only 48 of what you had predicted i think it was going to present in coal overtook that. Could you talk about that a little bit . Certainly in pjm, we saw the coal during the recent cold snap, more Coal Production than normal. I think it was an economic displacement. Gas prices went up and gas units dispatched down and coal came on at the higher level. Certainly we saw more Coal Production, coal fired production if you will than we normally would in that cold snap. And could you help me too maybe the chairman can help with this. The pricing of natural gas, prices spiked up to an all time high during this time, maybe 60 times their normal price. Do you know that chairman . I dont know if it was an all time high. I know with did experience significant price increases and you know, as i mentioned earlier, thats the kind of thing that can in a broad sense be helpful. Its important that we have market signals that reflect shortages, including in this case short term spikes in demand, send proper signals to both providers of the resource and consumers. Do you want to put more the prices got up into the 100 range. If you look when the pipes are could be strained in the 2 to 3 range. That gets me to another issue weve talked around but certainly in the new england area, the accessibility to natural gas and the permitting with pipelines, were were having difficulty even a state of West Virginia sometimes permitting our pipelines. The chairwoman can speak about this as well. You know, new england doesnt seem to have the appetite to permit the pipelines so i read in the Financial Times that says that gas from russia, arctic will warm homes in boston. And theres lng coming from russia. We have a Natural Resource in my home state and region that would love to be selling our natural gas in this country and into the northeast. How do you respond to that . Theres no customer prepared to sign the longterm contract to have the pipelines built. The second issue once you have a customer, then you have to confront the siding issue, both in new england and new york. You would have to overcome those two obstacles. I think the decision from a policy point of view for the region do Regional Policy makers wants to relieve those constraints or work around them. If you work around the constraints, then you either have to turn to alternate fuels like oil or lng and in that sense the jones act doesnt make sense because were importing lng from far away places and exporting a few hundred miles south of us. With the russia lng that has come in. They already a customer purchasing this because the supplies got so low during the bomb cyclone . The dynamic is when the lng inventory drops below certain levels, customers in the gas markets, local distribution companies, for example, will start calling for spot gas supplies. You get contracting happening in the world market for lng. Interesting from another perspective, while thats occurring, the russian gas coming here, we have to cargo vessels going with lng to southern ports, louisiana, into europe to help them meet their challenge. If were looking at an overall system here from cost from emissions and all kinds of things, it doesnt seem to make a whole lot of sense. It doesnt make a lot of sense to me either. No. Thank you. Our job is to make sense of all of this. Lets go to senator king. I hate to follow the admonition to make sense. It makes it difficult. I remember meeting with you in 2013 about this very issue. And first madam chair, i love this panel, we should take them with us everywhere. You all have done a really good job of illustrating a lot of issues in a brief time. I do want to promote something for the audience and anybody interested in these issues and it is an app called iso to go, produced by iso and it gives you moment to moment prices all over new england, where the demand curve by the way, mr. Van welie, the demand is exceeding the forecast at this moment by half a mega watt. You may want to call your office when we finish here. It gives where the resources are, renewable, gas, and coal and nuclear. Very, very useful. Thank you for this. Its incredibly helpful. I want to put some visuals, i learn visually to what weve been talking about here today the red line is the marcellus shale cost in the region, in pennsylvania, going back to the beginning of december the blue is the cost to new england. Its a delivery problem and thats what weve been talking about today. The infrastructure, does anybody want to build a 2 or 3 billion pipeline to deal with this if its not going to be necessary the rest of the year. Thats where we get into tradeoffs and building the infrastructure. I want to indicate how they interrelate. The other piece, the relationship between what we saw, Natural Gas Prices and electricity, an absolute almost entire straightforward correlation as you see and this goes back this goes back 15 years, hurricanes hit the gulf, and gas goes up and electricity in new england goes up, same thing over the winter 2014, the polar vortex, up 32 megawatt hour recently. These things are all interrelated. One of my favorite comments was from a friend in mine in maine who said there is rarely a silver bullet. Theres often silver buckshot and thats what were talking about here. A multiplicity of resources and the miss clements, you talked the cheapest kilowatt hour the is one you never use. We have efficiency opportunities and renewables and demand response. Weve got storage. Weve got infrastructure. Weve got rate structure, mr. Mcintyre. Weve got rate structure which will influence how we use power, i realize im making a speech. If you can find a question in here, youre welcome to it. Mr. Van welie, talk about how we deal with this. Lets make it specific. Do we build a pipeline or do more storage . I think its going to come down to what policy makers decide to do. Theres two parallel tracks in terms of the conversation. The one track were be in the lead on, how do we make sure the constraint is appropriately priced in the market. Because to chairman mcintyres point and unless we price that constraint, were not going to get through a liability we seek. We learned some things over the past few weeks that make us think weve still got work to do. I think the separate and parallel discussion is how to relief these constraints, to mrs. Clemens points, Energy Efficiency is one tool in the tool box. Ms. Clemens you may have missed it, we take into account the efforts the states are making and the New England States lead the nation now in terms of Energy Efficiency. But i think the evolution is occurring faster than what the states are doing with regard to the efficiency investments and my fear really is that the retirements will happen more quickly than these investments will be made. And the other thing i look at. One of the problems i see here is that gas is the cheapest capital cost. And yet youre taking the price risk and thats one of the tradeoffs but the way the system is working now, everyone is looking for low rates next year and year after and we dont have long term 15year power purchase agreements that will support the Capital Investment necessary for some of the other options. Yes, i think the the demand for the fuel is the issue. Well stuck with this problem for a long time because if you think about where the region is going in the long run, we want to take carbon out of transportation and heating, which means were going to drive the demand for wholesale electricity up in the region. Over time well have less unitization of the pipeline, but when you need it, youll need it in a big way. You can offset that through electric storage but our issue is seasonal storage. I think the region needs to work through the various possibilities and understand what the cost benefit trade again, youre talking about grid level storage but its hard to justify the cost if you only need it two weeks of the year, correct . Grid level storage in terms of todays technologies are not very useful in a multiday, multiweek event. Thank you, senator. Senator daines. Thank you, Ranking Member cantwell, seems like each winter and summer when energy demands peak, were reminded of the importance of reliable and reenergy. From the northern states, we expect terms like polar vortex and bomb cyclones. In montana we call that january but thats the way it goes. The importance of keeping the supply on hand to keep the lights on and infrastructure necessary to support that system and this winter has been no different, this hearing is timely as my office kicking off Planning Efforts for our energy summit, we do this every couple of years. It will be in billings in may. Weve invited ferc chairman Kevin Mcintyre to attend and secretary perry and others and hope to have important conversations related to Energy Infrastructure and the jobs energy creates in our states. We hope they can both attend. As youve probably heard me say more than you want to, one critical piece of our Energy Infrastructure in montana is a coal strip power plant. Supports about 750 direct jobs. Generates enough power for about 1. 7 million homes and businesses across montana and the Pacific Northwest through heavy handed regulations, litigation and some state policies, the future of this plant is actually at risk. I was out there a couple of years ago on a visit thats memorable to me. They were taking boilers down for maintenance, it was july. I walked in and they were scrambling. The plant manager had been up since early morning, middle of the night, in july and whats the problem . Heres the problem. He said, we have tremendous balance d Energy Portfolio in montana, were developing renewables and great hydroresources and wind resources. But this High Pressure system moved into the northwest and when High Pressure systems move in, what happens . Temperature goes up and the wind stops blowing. And because they had coal strip down one of the major units down for boiler maintenance, we were struggling to keep up with baseload at that moment because the wind stopped blowing. And we referral to wind as intermittent power. And its not a critique of that renewable source of energy but we still have to solve the storage issue with wind to make it a more reliable part of our Energy Portfolio. I just came back from taiwan last year when it was september, if you remember what happened in taiwan, in august, they lost electricity to about half of the homes across taiwan. It was a major outage. And why . Because they were too aggressively Going Forward on eliminating Nuclear Energy from the balance portfolio. They had a plant ready to go back in 2014 and battling some of the regulatory issues to get it up and running. With the peak load, a hot day in august, they lost their baseload. I understand that while a lot of coal fire generation is retired in recent years, new england had to rely on existing coal and oil fire generation for this winter event. As more States Energy mixes are changing towards a more Renewable Generation due to policies and so forth, we must find ways to keep a diverse all of the above energy mix in the nation especially during the peak times of load. Mr. Walker, in your experience, how important is it to keep a Diverse Energy portfolio at all times but especially during peak load . Thank you for the question. I believe its extremely important. And its not only during peak load. I think its throughout the year. You know, importantly, the diversity of the load provides the opportunity for us to build resiliency into the model. With the threats we have today with Cyber Security and they are emerging and evolving and increasing and the impact of these could be very significant in the country, so as we look at the portfolio of generation sources that we have, the diversity component is extremely important. And as we work with the rtos and ferc to evaluate the proposal set forth by ferc. Those are things we will identify and look at. I mentioned earlier on page 86, of the staff report, theres a diagram that illustrates the different capabilities of just different generation sources, things that provide for the basehood, the essential Reliability Services of each of the different types of generators. So as you look at this, its like an optimization equation. When you look at the different variables and what the underlying goal is, which is to provide a safe reliable and resilient grid, its about optimizing, as well as the underlying systems that tie in to get and achieve the reliability and resilience we need too. Last comment and i know im out of time. My training was in engineering. When i tell the quick little story about engineers, its not meant to be disparaging but i was in a debate about capacity, running operations for Procter Gamble and the variation in demand and need to have capacity to cover spikes and we believe it needed to be over here and engineers were off in the ivory tower during calculations. Thankfully we had a Senior Executive that was listening and stepped back. First of all, i always err on the side of the operational folks because they deal with reality. Number two, if an engineer were to design the amount of beds needed for a family of three is one because in terms of capacity, they would say you only need one bed for a family of three because on average everybody sleeps eight hours a day. Its something to think about as we relate to peak capacity. Thank you. Thank you, senator daines, senator heinrich. Senator daines can get away with that because hes an engineer. I am too. Its a curse sometimes a blessing. I want to talk about the term baseload power, we are more of it today than 10 or 15 years ago and i find that fascinating. I grew up in a utility family, my dad was a lineman and manager later. Those were the days when coal and nuclear and hydro were the only games in town. But i bring that up because i think baseload often times today is more of a political term than an engineering term. And it tends to come up often times at times when its sort of code for trying to subsidize generation, that is no longer competitive in the marketplace. I would point out that when those coal fired generators go down, they are providing and often times, thats unplanned maintenance and not unusual, they are providing zero baseload megawatts to the grid. We need to find ways today to think about our grid and meet supply and demand together and know what the weather is going to be tomorrow and the next day so that we can match those things up from whatever generation sources were using. I want to go to mr. Walker first. You satisfied something to senator manchin and i want to i dont want to misquote you. I want to understand if i understood you correctly. That inherently, coal at a coal generating station is less exposed to the threats of physical or cyber threat to the grid than say oil and gas pipelines. And the reason why i bring that up, because from my perspective, once you use that coal to generate, you have to get it to the customer. You have to do that over transmission lines and then distribution lines and it seems to me that all of these infrastructures are equally exposed to those threats. You have the same systems at sub stations and relating to transmission and distribution on the electric grid that you would use in pipelines, you have the same physical threats to both of those distribution networks. So i dont i dont see the difference in terms of exposure in terms of Critical Infrastructure, am i missing something. Its a fair question. What you heard me say and what you reiterated is that what i do believe. And from and the perspective that were taking and im taking right now is focused on protecting Critical National infrastructure and you know, as ferc deals with the marketplace and we focus on the capability that provides that safety and stability in the grid. If i have a stockpile of coal at a location for sufficient period of time, im not placing at risk the infrastructure as if it were natural gas. If we take what if that coal is too frozen or wet to actually burn . Those are possibilities that were realized during the polar vortex. I think through much of the work that was done after the polar vortex, provisions have been placed in at the utilities and the generation plants that utilize things like coal to prevent through weatherization techniques and things like that. When i think of the polar vortex or this latest bomb cyclone, if im getting that term correct the unsung hero that i think about that gets very little attention is actually demand response. And so id be curious from the folks at pjm and iso new england, you know, how important is demand response at this point in these sorts of events and has a market been fully implemented . And are there federal policies in place that assure that demand response is allowed to compete as effectively as possible in these kinds of events. So, a market has been fully developed for demand response. We speak of demand resources broadly in new england and two categories, the one is passive demand resources like Energy Efficiency and thats very well developed in new england because of the state programs supporting that investment. And the active demand response, which is active reduction during system events and so forth, we have lower penetration in new england but the market exists. I think the issue has been the economics. Its not competitive in the market relative to some of the other resources. If you give me a minute, i wanted to reinforce Something Else you said as well. Theres a policy conundrum with respect to the discussion between field diversity and fuel security. I think the policy conundrum is the term fuel diversity is at odds with the idea of a competitive whole sale market because it implies a Central Planning or kes strags of the different resources on the system. The markets, what youre trying to do is create a competitive con instruct with the most resources to reduce the reliability service. You dont hear us using fuel diversity. We use the term fuel security. Senator cassidy. Thank you. Gentlemen, im going to refer to some testimony we actually had in june of 2016 from a fellow jonathan perez, the director of air policy Environmental Defense fund. And it was a very good hearing last time, which ill now kind of raise questions from that. Mr. Mcintyre, seeing theres a price spike in fuel cost, lng was imported, spot price going far higher in the northeast, this gentlemen last year said that there was actually a lot of unused capacity in our northeast Pipeline System and that ferc was working to add flexibility to the schedule and to better use that capacity. Do you agree its an assertion from two years ago, i guess, year and a half ago . Do you agree with that assertion and ferc adds to Work Flexibility in terms of delivering of gas. I know we have worked on reforms in the market structures and practices in schedules in the interrelationship between natural gas pipe lines which we regulate and electric transmission, which of course is critical to gain the power that was generated to where its consumed. I think he was speaking of the gas and said at times only 54 of the capacity was used in the polar vortex, the event to which he was referring. Im asking, is that still an issue or has that been addressed specifically . Well, we do have as you heard i think most i had to step out, im sorry if i missed something. Mr. Van welie presented the situation in new england, where indeed we have ongoing longterm challenges in transportation infrastructure. Is that related to lack of efficient use of current capacity and im sure its not either or or due to lack of capacity, sir . In new england its lack of capacity at this point. This gentleman made the point, very provocative, if you look at the lack of capacity, it was only like two weeks out of the year in which there was alack of capacity. And at this point cheaper to pay prices two weeks out of the year as opposed to the infrastructure for remaining 50 weeks of the year. Any thoughts about that . It depends on ones view of the cost and benefits of roll being blackouts for example. Theres a point beyond which well supply the supply and demand by taking demand off the system. Thats the trade off. One could look at it and say its not worth making an investment in a Pipeline Infrastructure because we only use it a month a year, the incremental capacity. But you have to weigh that against the other consequences as well. What our study attempts to do, show were very close to the edge in new england and we need to find a way of relieving this constraint one way or another. Either through investment in the Pipeline Infrastructure or continued investment in other sources of energy to take the pressure off the pipeline or reducing demand on the system. Those are the three avenues available. They have different implications with regard to cost. Importation of lng would not be adequate for those two to four weeks a year in which you are truly constrained. Well become much more dependent than imports of lng. Market monitor raised another question, two suppliers of energy into the region, one of which is in boston, the other in canada, pivotal suppliers into the marketplace. Want you to expect very high prices for natural gas when we have these constraints and i think the policy tradeoff is do you want to pay these high prices on an episodic basis when it gets cold or do you want to soften those economics by investing in infrastructure. This gentlemans point, i dont mean to belabor, but its a critical question. The pipelines are so expensive, thats its cheaper to do the episodic high price than it is to do the infrastructure. Hes not here to make his point directly, but it sounds almost like youre disagreeing with that. I think that the region needs to work through those cost benefit tradeoffs. Okay. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Senator duckworth . Thank you, chairman murkowski and convening this important conversation. My two engineering colleagues are not here but i wanted to remind them that multiple people are sharing the same bed in the United States navy its called hot racking and there are young sailors doing it right now in order to defend our nation. Lets say a quiet prayer for them of thanks for what they are willing to put up with to keep us safe. My question really talks a little bit goes back to the work that states have been doing for Renewable Energy. Illinois, my home state has made tremendous gains in this area and in addition to requiring 25 Renewable Energy by 2025, we also prioritize investment in jobs Training Programs that are focused on low income individuals to create thousands of clean energy jobs. And these investments will help make our grid more reliable and more resilient, not less. While also creating jobs. Ms. Clemens, in your opinion, how will illinoiss renewable policies impact the power system in the context of extreme weather events . Thank you, senator. I think the recent Illinois Energy act is one of the great examples of the smart way that states are leaning into this Energy Transition and saying we are going to use american ingeneral unite to create Economic Opportunity and jobs from making the grid more resilient and reliable. By increasing the diversity of the resources on the system through increased wind and solar under the rps standard and increasing Energy Efficiency, it is increasing resource diversity at this point nationally, only about 7 of the resource mix is nonhydrorenewables. When you think about the characteristics, every kind of resource has a set of benefits and issues that weve just been talking about. So narrowing the conversation to just gas versus coal and lng versus new pipelines is an overly narrow view of the opportunities. The whole sale Energy Markets have done a good job of what theyve intended to do, which is to provide low cost reliable energy. As the mix changes and states like illinois take these exciting actions, the markets are going to have to start valuing things like resource flexibility that the illinois act is going to bring in through new distributed Energy Resources and thats exciting. When were talking about price formation in the markets, lets not forget that we cant under value the benefits that the Renewable Energy resources and distributed Energy Resources and Energy Efficiency are also bringing to the table. When they are overperforming and providing extra services to the grid, they should also be getting paid for those services. I think illinois along with minnesota and hawaii and new york and california are just real showing the way that other states can can look to as an example. Thank you. Can you speak a little bit to the coast of the renewables during extreme weather events and how did it compare to other fuels . In a marginal cost basis, the beauty of renewables the wind and sun are free. So they were able to help by wind specifically in the polar vortex and were still getting the information from the bomb cyclone, but the what they serve the role the winds in particular served was help to avoid price spikes or mitigate those natural gas marginal cost price spikes by overperforming at low marginal costs. Thank you. And in every tragedy, theres some opportunity and even though four months have passed since Hurricane Maria made landfall and clear evidence of the storm remain, the lack of electricity Running Water and reliability Communications Remain a central challenge to puerto rico and it struggles to return to semblance of life. Im committed to developing an advancing policy that would enable the island to remain operational during the next super storm. I would like to see in puerto rico some investments made so they are not put in the same place they were in before maria hit. Ms. Clements in your opinion will policies that help stimulate solar and batteries better position them for the next storm . We know with Global Warming and every extreme events, they are going to get hit again. Thanks for the question. Absolutely. I think just as of yesterday, 32 of puerto ricos customers remain without power. Thats all of october and november and december and now most of january. And the government also announced that they are considering privatizing utility. That might help in and of itself with credit worthiness of the offtakers in bringing in the expertise to provide that Innovative New model grid. But anything that congress can do to provide those incentives to help get that solar and get that Energy Storage online in puerto rico is critical and women facilitate a a model per the National Academy recommendations can serve as a best practice, which then can be shared with other states and regions within the continental u. S. Thank you. I look forward to working with members of this committee in securing legislation to help us achieve these goals. Thank you senator duckworth. Madam chairman, i have two questions for each of you relating to the bomb cyclone. The capacity and reliability, one goes back to question in the senator daines was getting at, how do we make sure we have enough base load power for those type of events so were ready for those type of events . Number two, how are we going to build the transmission and the pipe lines to make sure we have an adequate Distribution System . Were running into incredible difficulties building any type of pipeline for oil or gas and also were running into same kind of problems with transmission. Its actually whether youre a fan of traditional or renewable, were running into the problem ever building enough infrastructure. I can cite examples to you including most recently Dakota Access pipeline in our state which moves half a Million Barrels of oil a day to east coast refineries that need our light crude. If they dont get it from us, they get it from saudi arabia, id rather they get it from north dakota. You can each take a swing at it. How do we make sure we have enough baseload power and how do we get people to support building this transmission we need to have the reliability we want . Chairman, mcintyre, you want to lead the effort here . Why not. Thank you, senator. Thank you for the question. As to baseload as was pointed out, its a term that means Different Things to different people these days. I think of it as the big large scale power plants intentionally designed to kind of run 24 7 essentially. And that is changing as Technology Changes and the economics of the market change. To answer your question, how do we ensure we have enough of it. We ensure we have the right market structures in place that compensate those resources. Compensate them appropriately. Secondly, you raised the question the difficulty of getting sufficient new Energy Infrastructure built. I fully share that concern, its unquestionably a problem. We have to look at ways to mends and improve our permitting processes so we can get over some of these obstacles. Okay. Mr. Walker . Thank you, senator. With regard to the baseload, one of the things i learned early on, were not very creative. So we name things for exactly what they do. And baseload referred basically the bottom of the stack, the economic stack and for what was going to meet the base requirements of load. I think that as chairman recognized, i think recognizing them from a market standpoint and placing value on things like the central Reliability Services as part of the economics will help drive that. I think also in recognizing and taking a different perspective and look the at it from a resiliency standpoint, there are values that will not be captured in the economic component that have value to the economic and National Security of the United States. And i think those in conjunction with the work that ferc does, needs to be integrated together to help drive the investment. And then once weve identified those critical components that are both valuable to the market from an economic standpoint to drive costs done and valuable from a physical and Cyber Security perspective to ensure the National Security, we blend those together to help work through the processes. Doe works with the states and local components of the United States municipal governments to work through issues as does ferc. With the proper data and analysis and the evaluation that really identifies the right locations, well work through the process and get them in. I like your pin. Thank you. I got it from northcom. Good job. Glad to see youre wearing it. Charles, im not going to take a swing at your last name. So, nerc identified fuel diversity as being critical in the long run. Were in the middle of a significance transformation of our system. Having that fuel diversity is whats going to allow us to have the reliable operations and i tend to move away from terms like base load or other kinds of adjectives and talk about different generation provides different attributes and different risks attached to it. So the policy makers need to consider whats the appropriate mix of that kind of generation thats going to give you the best risk based outcome for operating your system in a local area. Whats really important to us as we move to an environment where we are more and more thinking about renewables as part of our mix, is the stability of the bulk power system behind it. That system is critical in order for renewables to in fact be attractive to people, to the extend there is no wind or no sun, youre drawing power from the grid. So having the grid operating reliably is critical to the success of renewables being inserted into our system. And we need to really consider carefully what are the attributes, different generations provide to that stability of that system. And making sure that everyone is fairly contributing to that stability of the system from each of the different generation portfolios. Im not much of an expert on transmission citing or incentives but i will say, its just listening to the testimony here today, it seems obvious to me if youre going to move particularly in the case of Gas Generation, if youre going to move to more Gas Generation as being part of whether its a bridge to a more renewable based system or simply part of the basic power structure, youre going to need more capacity. Its something were hearing in the testimony today. So providing some types of incentives that get better capacity for gas seems to me a fairly important consideration for policy makers Going Forward. Youve got to get support for citing it. Ms. Clements . Thank you. Id echo the description of baseload and that were going to as we move forward were able to move away from that particular characteristic as the primary goal. However, the sheer number of megawatts that resources provide on the system is important. Weve got lots of power. Across the Country Planning reserve margins are very strong. From in general how do we have enough, theres already lots there. Go to the infrastructure piece then. If you have the power, youve got to get it to where you need it. Absolutely. This is an opportunity for the Committee Hearing was designed to dig into these questions. So i think if i look at the problem, i think weve got stretches in n place to ensure we have resources on the system. We have structures in place on the transmission planning authorities that rtos have with ferc oversight for transmission build. I think citing is a problem. I think the the big regulatory gap and structural problem is restructuring markets 20 years ago. We didnt understand the dependency that would be created on the gas system so we have a gas system where the Business Model is completely different from the system and restructured markets and so that lets to a situation where you dont have a customer for the increment incr Pipeline Investment to serve the Gas Generation. Thats a problem we will struggle with for a while. It is a problem. Madam chairman, thank you for your indulgence. I apologize for going over my time. You went well off, but there is exactly what this Committee Hearing was designed to dig into. Was these questions. When you say well, you mean qualitatively or quantitatively . Both tp it w. These are important, the answers on the records are equally important. So well done, sir. Senator . Thank you. I appreciate that as well. The comments and conversation we are having today is so important and thank you and thank you to the chairman as well. Mr. Mcintyre, good to see you again. Let me start with you. When you were before the committee for your nomination hearing we briefly discussed integrating Renewable Energy into the power grid. In nevada we have an energy bill of rights that allows could co to expert and store Renewable Energy on their property. And so mr. Mcintyre, do you believe there are additional actions that ferc can take to allow distributed Energy Resources access to whole sale electricity markets . There may well be, senator. Thank you for the question. There is already a lot of work thats been undertaken within the Commission Prior to my arrival. And we have a record of materials that have been submitted to address this very question. That is part of the work that remains before me personally and before the commission as well. It is very important issue. And it is something that were going to turn our attention to in due course. And i know in late 2016, ferc issued a proposed rule to eliminate barriers to the participation of electric storage in the whole sale markets. Whats the status of that effort . Thats precisely the work i was referring to. Is that timeframe or do you have to a sense of how it is something we will turn to in coming months. I dont have a specific calendar in mind for it. Okay. Okay. In your testimony you provide a number of key findings and recommendations on how to increase we zilency for cold weather. Do you have any recommendations for extreme heat . In nevada it can get to 115 in the summer. I dont off the top of my head. Thank you. Ms. Clemnen zblooinchtsds clements, what can be done to better protect vulnerable communities . Can you elaborate more on that . Rs ifto better protect vulnerab communities . Can you elaborate more on that . Rs in the event something really bad happens, like a hurricane or brought or some kind of storm, Critical Services like hospitals and fire stations an police stations and shelters and food banks need support in toward figure out their response for emergencies. A lot of this is subject to state and local jurisdiction. In the report, congress provide funding and support and field dissemination and best prak sis so we can try this. Local communities have to figure this out and help to share that information and socialize those best practices by region and across the country. Thank you. Mr. Walker, i know my colleague from illinois talked about this puerto rico. The devastation there and attempt to modernize their electric grid. I see the longterm plan is to begin with micro grid Power Installations at three manufacturing sites on the island. Can you elaborate more and do you have a Long Term Plan . Sure. That project is not a doe project. Oh, its not . The Development Corporation owns about 200 pieces of property on the island of puerto rico. As the industrial Development Corporation they own the property and lease it back. Back to customers. Like johnson and johnson and honeywell. And johnson and honeywell. Nd johnson and honeywell. D johnson and honeywell. Johnson and honeywell. Weve been giving them expertise on how to cite micro grids on the island. And to encourage them to stay on the island and further expand their Employment Opportunities for the people in puerto rico. Several members have commented that about the quality of the witnesses that weve had this morning and the discussion. One of the benefits of holding the gavel here is i get to stay for the whole morning. It has been as important and i think enlightening in certain areas. As any hearing weve had in a while. Thank you for that. I hear from most of you that we are beyond the discussion about base load power and how we define it. And i forget which of you referred to the policy conundrum between diversity verus security. We need the diverse portfolio but if the diversity doesnt give you the security of access, you fail when it comes to your resiliency. You fail in terms of your ability to really meet the expectation there and so i think its important that as we as we talk about these very serious challenges that we see as youve got a grid that is evolving and changing and aging and how we do a better job with the integration of all of this that we keep in mind this distinction between diversity and security and recognize that that has to be part of our issue. Weve heard several colleagues state that we can have all the supply that we need but if we cant move it doesnt get us anywhere and i think alaska is a poster child for that. We have extraordinary resources but our challenge has always been moving that to the market. So i really do appreciate so much of what we have heard here today. Youll notice that i have deferred my questions holding them until the end so i dont have the clock running with me and i dont want to keep you all too long but i do feel like i can bat cleanup a little bit. Let me begin with you, chairman, and again i appreciate all that youre doing within the commission there. I dont know if its fair to ask you your personal opinion but i will ask you your personal opinion about what you believe the risk to the grid presented by the ongoing retirements that were seeing in nuclear with coal retirements and just for purposes of conversation here, if youve got a scale of one to ten with ten being the most severe risk to the grid, where do you put us . Thank you, madam chairman, for the question. Quantification is an inherently tricky business and i feel so particular here but i can tell you conceptually that were probably clearly at a five. I say that on the basis just of what we know today of the resilience challenge that have presented themselves in prior weather events and other circumstances and i say that because of the potential irreversibility of the situation of unit retirements and individual unit retirement of a sizeable plant is a serious matter to the grid let alone an entire class, entire class of power plants, so its something that as of today id say merits a five ranking on your scale but i will have a better informed personal opinion after we have heard from the rtos and isos about what specific needs they see and concerns they have. Let me ask you about that because you the ferc has kicked that to the rtos and the isos to define what the concerns are with regards to resiliency. I guess the question is, are they the best are they the best organizations to make that assessment or that determination . What about the eros, the electricity reliability organizations, whether its nerc or various regional entities, what about d. O. E. . How do all the others factor in to the i think we recognize that the rtos and isos, they dont own the grid, you do have owners of the grid. I understand why ferc moved forward as you did in rejecting the nopra and i understand, i think where youre trying to go with gathering this assessment back, but does it need to be broader i guess is my question than just the rtos and the isos . Im happy to say it is broader. Okay. The most immediate and directed request was to the rtos and isos to report back in answering some specific questions to that. But we have invited broader Stakeholder Input. Im happy to say we have initiated that and had some Good Communications already with mr. Walkers organization and department and with mr. Berardescos organization. I would expect that to continue. So i do agree with your suggestion. I appreciate that and do feel that that is an important part of any analysis that might move forward. Assistant secretary walker, you spoke to just cooperation and collaboration that needs to go on. I think you said its going to take unprecedented cooperation and collaboration to keep the lights on or something to that effect. Thats correct. And to that end, then, with the with the resiliency model that you have indicated as a top priority for d. O. E. , have you or your staff, have you reached out to fercs reliability or security staff or been working with the rtos on this . Tell me how youre going to do sure, sure. Its a good question and i do believe that it does and will take a significant amount of collaboration, chairman mcintyre have already spoken about this with regard to the model. Yesterday i had the opportunity to meet with gordon down at the end of the table here with regard to the new england study. My team has already reached out and gone through looking toward integrating all of the work that fercs initiative will yield and so we work pretty regularly within d. O. E. With the isos and rtos as well as through the Electricity Sector coordinating council. We reached back throughout the United States and with nerc with all the partners that weve got there but in this case its even bigger than the electric side because its really where the nexus to bring together the oil and natural gas component. We have two separate coordinating councils which were looking to bring together under this rubric because of the between oil, natural gas and the electric system. So weve already laid out a schedule of all of those participants that we need to pull together to work with ferc, nerc and the regional rtos in an effort to ensure we have the best answer we can and thats the essence of where this model comes from. Once weve got all of the information and we then can take the actual technical components of the system which we already have, weve already started gathering that and thats part of the reason i was out at northcom with my Team Last Week is starting to define some of the resiliency work thats already been done at the department of defense and with the army corps. So weve already started that initiative to gather all of the components that weve got around. Yesterday i met with d. O. E. Security organization to identify work thats been done for resilience at our Nuclear Power plants and through our nnsa groups, to be able to coordinate that and provide that information effectively to ferc as we progress this forward. Were very much in lock step with this moving forward. It is so critically important to the National Security components that we address daytoday and obviously can dovetail very well into the marketplace to solve a lot of these issues. Good to know. This is exactly what we need. Its good to know that theres reports and analyses but if were not really coordinating and learning from other entities and what they have done or how they have advanced, its it is not as valuable as i think we would have hoped. Let me ask another question of you chairman mcintyre because theres been discussion about price formation and making sure that that value is in place. And i guess the quick question is, is how prompt will ferc be when it says that it will act promptly if it sees a need to take action and i i raise this because ferc opened up its price formation documents just after the polar vortex couple months into early 2014. That work still hasnt been completed on price formation, so i think what would be important to know is is given given the reality of time that it takes when with you say that ferc is going to take prompt action, does this mean that its technical conferences or staff memos and white papers, what actually can be expected and i think we we know that often times this is complicated and lengthy but we also speak frequently about this paralysis of analysis and the situation of this review, of ensuring reliability. I raised it eight years ago, maybe even longer now since i have raised these concerns and we continue to see growing levels of retirements, so i would hope that ferc recognizes that we need to move beyond technical conferences and more white papers, that we actually need to see that action, so can you speak to what yes, maam. Its a very valid question and certainly when i was in the private sector i shared you were pushing everybody along. As well. In terms of our january 8 order on our Grid Resilience initiative there was a certain calendar spelled out there, 60 days first for the rtos and isos to get back to us with our responses to our specific questions, 30 days for Stakeholder Input there after and then, yes, our commitment to prompt action thereafter. I cannot say now how much time will be involved in such prompt action because it will depend on the quality of the information which we get back which i expect to be very good in general, but its something where i have declared it and its a matter of priority for the commission. Those are not words we utter very often as a declared priority of the commission now to get this right and move with speed. I should say that in the meantime, we have stated as well in the very same order that should any shortterm concerns arise within a given rto or with a given utility, we want to know about it immediately. We will not sit idly by if theres some sort of legitimate concern regarding reliability or resilience of the grid. Well, i appreciate that. I think it helps that you have been on the other side and just very recently so that you know not only of the need but have been one that has been in the situation where youre urging the action, so i think that will help on the inside as well. I think i think given what members have covered throughout, i had many, many questions and i started and i think we got good information before the committee and so many of the questions that i had had have been answered but i recognize that this is this is a challenging space most certainly and we see the challenges pronounced when we have weather events that push the Energy Status quo that we might get pretty comfortable with and its a reminder that we need to be vigilant in understanding again the security, the reliability, the resilience of our energy supply. I mentioned just a few minutes ago that this hearing has probably been the most educational. Its right up there with the one that we had several weeks back when we had the head of the iea here who spoke about the Energy Trends internationally and he had four upheavals, i wont go through all of them but his fourth upheaval is what is happening with electricity and and how how that that whole sector is being impacted. Impacted. We got a lot of work to do but this has been a very instructive and helpful hearing to all members, so i thank you for the time and with that we stand adjourned. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up Tuesday Morning, a look at the rising cost of housing in u. S. Cities. And how it is impacting the middle class. Joining us will be the Hills National correspondent reid wilson. Also congressman from illinois bill foster will talk about his concerns with the trump administrations science policy. 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