Welcome Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: NERC considers a new rule for some renewable energy facilities, Poland goes nuclear with Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, and more.

NERC Considers Renewable Rule Changes

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. is pondering a new rule for smaller renewable energy generators.

Right now, 14% of renewable energy facilities aren’t registered with NERC don't have to follow its rules. This is concerning because, as NERC’s co-chair of resource registration Peter Heidrich, told Utility Dive, “from 2017 to 2021, the capacity of traditional resources on the BPS declined from 1,010 GW to 981 GW, while IBRs grew from 103 GW to 176 GW.”

Put plainly: as the grid loses traditional power plants and gains renewables, NERC is losing its ability to monitor these changes because the renewables aren’t registered with them. This diminishes NERC’s ability to monitor what’s happening on the grid right at the moment when more unreliable power plants are changing the resource mix nation-wide.

“With the amount of investment that’s taking place in our industry, we’re going to have bigger and bigger potential reliability issues with renewable resources,” Heidrich said. Last month, NERC released a report citing current renewables-oriented energy policy as the greatest threat to the American grid’s reliability.

So, NERC wants those smaller renewable energy facilities to register as part of the bulk power system, thus allowing NERC to monitor them. Registering would also bring them under the rubric of NERC’s reliability standards.

“NERC will take comments on the proposed rule change through Oct. 30,” reports Utility Dive.

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Poland Goes Nuclear

Westinghouse and Bechtel have inked a formal agreement to partner on the construction of Poland’s first nuclear power plant at Lubiatowo-Kopalino.

“An agreement signed earlier this year by Bechtel, Westinghouse and PEJ set out plans for the delivery of the project, with Westinghouse to lead the consortium at the design stage and Bechtel during construction,” reports World Nuclear News. “Westinghouse President for Energy Systems David Durham said the team has ‘demonstrated ability’ to deliver on large nuclear projects.“

"The fleet experience we have earned with our advanced, proven AP1000 technology, including a 100% complete design and construction lessons-learned, will serve Poland well as it seeks decarbonization and increased energy security," Durham said.

“The Polish Nuclear Power Programme lays out plans to build up to six reactors across two or three locations that would generate around 6 to 9 gigawatts of energy,” reports EuroNews. “That's enough to power almost 8 million homes.”

Poland wants to use nuclear power to transition away from coal, which provides 69% of its power.

"This is a milestone in the implementation of an investment that is crucial from the point of view of energy security," Polish Climate Minister Anna Moskwa said.

Conversation Starters

• Ukraine’s natural gas consumption to slump. “Ukraine's natural gas consumption is expected to fall below 20 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year from about 27 billion in 2021 before the full-scale war with Russia began, the CEO of the country's biggest oil and gas company Naftogaz said on Friday,” reports Reuters. “Oleksiy Chernyshov told Reuters he expected Ukrainian gas reserves to exceed 16 bcm at the start of the current heating season, enough to get the country through the upcoming winter. The heating season typically starts in mid- to late-October. ‘Overall Ukraine's gas consumption, annual, is below 20 billion cubic meters, it is between 18 to 19 bcm,’ Chernyshov said in an interview.”

• Sempra wins federal approval for LNG export expansion on Texas Gulf Coast. “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave Sempra Infrastructure the OK for Phase 2 expansion of the Port Arthur LNG project, a move company officials described as a ‘major regulatory milestone’ that could lead to the facility doubling its capacity,” reports the San Diego Union Tribune. “Phase 1 of the $13 billion Port Arthur project is already under construction in Jefferson County, Texas, and is designed to include two huge storage tanks and a pair of LNG processing units, called “trains” in the parlance of the industry. With FERC approval for Phase 2 now in place, the facility could increase output from 13 million metric tons a year to 26 million, add two more trains, another storage tank and marine berth.”

• Nigeria secures Big Oil money. “Nigeria has secured a total of $13 billion in investment commitments in its oil and gas sector from major international energy companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies, according to Olu Verheijen, the Special Adviser on Energy to Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu,” reports Oilprice.com. “Verheijen and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) have recently met with representatives of 15 oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria and have secured their commitment to invest in Nigerian oil and gas, the adviser said in a statement on Friday sent to the Nairametrics outlet in Nigeria.”

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