NERC: Accelerated Coal and Nuclear Retirements Pose Limited Reliability Risks
The accelerated retirement of coal-fired and nuclear generation by 2022 could adversely affect reliability in four regions, including in the east and over a swathe of the central U.S., the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned as it released findings from a “stress-test” scenario.
But the entity tasked with ensuring reliability and security of the North American bulk power system (BPS) also noted six of 10 assessment areas—which cover PJM, New England, MISO, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and the Western coast—would have enough generation capacity to maintain peak demand, even if they see high levels of generator retirements over the next five years.
A “Stress-Test” Scenario
The findings stem from NERC’s Dec. 18–released “Generation Retirement Scenario,” which the entity evaluated because, it said, the retirement of traditional baseload generators and their rapid replacement with natural gas–fired, wind, and solar generation “is changing the characteristics of the BPS and introducing new considerations for reliability planning.”
The so-called “stress-test” scenario essentially assumes that areas where coal and nuclear currently make up a large share of resource levels will see accelerated retirements so that by 2022, they will lose 30% of their coal capacity and 45% of their nuclear capacity.…