John Siciliano of the Washington Examiner reports that Congress will probe the lasting impact of the recent cold spell.
The deep freeze that tested the nation’s electric grid this month will take center stage in the Senate this week as the energy committee probes how the grid performed during single-digit temperatures.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Tuesday hearing will feature Kevin McIntyre, the Republican head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, testifying for the first time since taking the commission’s helm in December.
It is also the first time McIntyre will be testifying before the Senate since he and his fellow four commissioners voted unanimously to reject Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to provide incentives for coal and nuclear power plants.
Perry wanted the commission to approve new regulations directing regional grid operators to give coal and nuclear power plants market-based subsidies. The incentives would reward the power plants for being able to maintain an adequate supply of fuel when the grid is stressed by extreme weather events such as the bomb cyclone.
Perry and his deputies, rather than express disappointment with FERC, have said they are encouraged that the commission, while rejecting the grid plan, has initiated a review of grid resilience.
The Energy Department has said the need to address grid reliability and resilience was punctuated by the two-week cold snap, which ended with the “bomb cyclone” snowstorm in the Northeast.
