FERC Issues NOPR Regarding Reliability Standards BAL-005-1 and FAC-001-3

On September 22, 2016, in Docket RM16-13-000, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) that would approve Reliability Standards BAL-005-1 (Balancing Authority Control) and FAC-001-3 (Facility Interconnection Requirements), submitted for approval by NERC on April 20, 2016.  Proposed Reliability Standards BAL-005-1 and FAC-001-3 would clarify and consolidate existing requirements related to frequency control.  The Proposed Reliability Standards would require timely reporting of an inability to calculate Reporting Area Control Error (“ACE”), as well as set minimum levels of availability for each balancing authority’s system for calculating Reporting ACE.  FERC’s NOPR also proposes to retire Reliability Standards BAL-005-0.2b (Automatic Generation Control), FAC-001-2 (Facility Interconnection Requirements), and BAL-006-2 (Inadvertent Interchange).