Text Posted 11/17/2006 on Entergy Intranet – Inside Entergy/Transmission

Entergy Moves Reliability Coordination and Other Duties to ICT

Nov. 1 and 17 mark important days in Entergy’s recent history. But only a handful of people within Entergy and elsewhere knew anything had changed. That’s exactly how it was supposed to be.

Reliability Coordination, Tariff Administration and Planning

On Nov. 1, the responsibility for reliability coordination for Entergy’s transmission system transferred from the System Operations Center in Pine Bluff to the Independent Coordinator of Transmission, at Southwest Power Pool’s offices in Little Rock.

On Nov. 17 the ICT took on the responsibility for administration of Entergy’s Open Access Transmission Tariff and for planning expansion of the system to accommodate new generation.

Crossing these milestones took time and a lot of work.    

From Then to Now – 10 Years After

About 10 years ago, as part of deregulation of the wholesale electric power industry, federal regulations changed in a major way. With wholesale deregulation, the responsibilities changed for utilities like Entergy that own and operate transmission systems.

First and foremost among the new requirements was that investor-owned utilities file an Open Access Transmission Tariff to implement the federal mandate to offer up any unused transmission capacity to the wholesale power marketplace on a nondiscriminatory basis.  Commercial deals to move power over great distances became commonplace, creating significant challenges in studying the transmission system and protecting reliability.

In ways comparable to the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, the changed industry business climate caused a rush of new market players. New generation was built at rates unmatched in history. Locally, other companies added more than 17,000 MWs of new generators to the Entergy grid during this time.

Among other initiatives, in 1997 the North American Electric Reliability Council developed the Reliability Coordinator role in response to the challenges of a competitive wholesale power market along with operating reliably. 

Initially, the Southwest Power Pool handled these responsibilities. Although Entergy had been a member of Southwest Power Pool for many years, Entergy concluded in 1997 that its interests were in better alignment with our neighbors to the east and decided to leave SPP to join the Southeastern Electric Reliability Council.

Entergy picked up the role of Reliability Coordinator as it moved to SERC. Since 1998, along with Entergy’s obligation to continue supplying reliable, affordable power to our customers, came the responsibilities to perform reliability functions for the transmission systems of several companies in its area to make sure that events within our system would not spill over to neighboring systems in the Eastern Interconnect.

 SOC Up to the Challenges

These new duties were housed at Entergy’s SOC in Pine Bluff and were handled by Entergy employees there. These SOC employees met FERC requirements, NERC requirements, and those of our retail regulators, as they performed the SOC’s role as Reliability Coordinator and managed Entergy’s OATT.

The SOC team successfully managed the reliability challenges presented by the massive amount of new generation built by others. In addition, during the August 2003 Northeast blackout, Entergy diligently maintained the reliability of the transmission system in this part of the country.

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita crippled the transmission system in southern and western areas of the service territory, the SOC worked round the clock to maintain reliability for the parts of the system that were still intact. Other major challenges included the July 23, 1999, rotating blackouts, NERC Transmission Load Relief events, weather damage to the transmission system on July 15, 2005, other hurricanes and ice storms.

Continuity of Experience for Our Customers

Now, a decade later, as part of Entergy’s efforts to align its transmission operations with changing FERC policy, those critically important duties have transferred back to SPP as it takes on its role as ICT. The transition is underpinned by continuity of experience. 

Entergy employees who handled many of these duties at the SOC assisted in the transition to SPP with training and documentation. Other Entergy employees voluntarily chose to join SPP and perform certain reliability coordination and tariff functions. This continuity of experience is a factor that will ensure that Entergy’s customers will continue to enjoy the excellent level of reliable electric service they have long experienced.