FERC Report Blames M-U for Electric Almost-Outage Last Winter

Less than a year ago, the Northeast experienced a major winter storm at Christmastime (Winter Storm Elliott). Do you remember it? On Dec. 23, temps in places like the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania hit 60 degrees! Within 12 hours, the bottom dropped out, with temps plunging into the single digits—a more than 50-degree change. Dec. 24's high temp in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown) was 13 degrees. The massive temperature change caused problems with power generation by natural gas plants, some of which went offline due to freeze-ups in the pipelines that feed them. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a final report yesterday on Winter Storm Elliott, complete with recommendations for sweeping new regulations to prevent future blackouts from storms like Elliott.

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