House Natural Resources Committee Issues Testimony From DOE Assistant Secretary
"Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Grijalva, and distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the status of
"The
"DOE Involvement in
"Over the course of the 2017 hurricane season, the Department provided numerous personnel to support response and recovery efforts. These included bilingual public information personnel to provide life safety and life sustaining communications, subject matter experts as part of
"
DOE Involvement in
"A strong recovery and revitalization is important to the territory, as well as the Nation. Maintaining and enhancing the affordability and resilience of the electric grid, at fair and reasonable costs, will provide service and value to the region. Yet, no single investment in energy infrastructure at one point in time will achieve resilience. The energy infrastructure of
"The long-term resilience and reliability of
"Strategizing an Electric Energy Policy and Regulatory Framework The Southern States Energy Board (SSEB), in association with
"SSEB will collect data and perform an analysis of the economic, financial, and insurance impacts of PREPA's potential privatization to inform the development of regulatory framework models. They will also identify components of PREPA's privatization economics, e.g., generation, transmission, distribution; priority; rate structure; feasibility; and transparency aspects to balance the needs of the
"DOE Report on Energy Resilience Solutions for the Puerto Rico Grid DOE has completed its Report on Energy Resilience Options and Potential Solutions for the Puerto Rico Grid. This report provides recommendations to
"The interdependencies across sectors, assessment of potential alignment, and sequencing of funding across different agency programs that support various sector infrastructures will require significant coordination. The report also notes where the results of analysis are needed to articulate resilience-related, investment-grade suggestions regarding the design and specification of the electricity system in
"Although some of the additional analysis necessary to support those resilience principles is underway, recommendations proposed in our report to improve the performance of the system are as follows:
"The Governor and PREPA should immediately ensure that updated, effective mutual aid agreements are primed to quickly provide support during the next event.
"To align with the objectives of the National Incident Management System, incident command, control, and coordination should follow the Incident Command System (ICS). All possible parties will train in ICS and use it during a response.
"
"Electricity transmission towers installed specifically for temporary emergency restoration should be considered for replacement, potentially by monopoles--many of the round monopole structures survived the 2017 storms.
"The PREC should finalize microgrid regulations, and establish effective and efficient interconnection requirements and wheeling regulations with PREPA. These regulations will allow customers to design their systems to add reliability and resilience to PREPA's system.
"The Commonwealth Energy Public Policy Office, in coordination with other appropriate Commonwealth agencies, should consider drafting an updated Energy Assurance Plan, which will provide for an Incident Management Team as well as other important components. Besides preparing for the next hurricane season, acting immediately will allow for leveraging the presence of Federal staff in the
"Near-Term and Long-Term Grid Modeling Support Another DOE effort is through grid modeling to support the rebuilding of a more resilient electric power grid system in
"Several potential
1. Power Flow - assesses power system operations, including generator dynamics and protective relay coordination [used to identify power system needs, evaluate technology options, and help prioritize resilience investments, e.g., transmission enhancements]
2. Production Cost and Capacity Expansion - informs economic dispatch strategies and long-term planning [used to understand how resource investments, system costs, and load are impacted by key policy and technology sensitivities]
3. Microgrids, Energy Storage, and System Segmentation - identifies where clusters of generation and load provide maximum community benefit [used to identify prepositioning of emergency generation, local hardening of infrastructure, and adjustment of emergency procedures]
4. Cross-Sector Infrastructure Interdependencies - characterizes reciprocal relationships within the energy sector, e.g., electricity-petroleum; electricity-liquefied natural gas, as well as cross-sector infrastructure such as telecommunications and/or water [used to investigate supply disruption impacts and identify mitigation approaches]
"
Conclusion
"I am proud of the work we are doing to address the long term restoration and recovery efforts in
"Thank you, and I look forward to your questions."
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Footnote:
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