NERC and the regional entities said the ongoing shutdown of business travel and remote work postures from COVID-19 helped fuel budget savings in 2021.

The Northwest stands out as an exception to the increasingly dire water situation gripping the wider West, boding well for its summer hydropower potential.

Finance officers across the ERO Enterprise said that inflation and cybersecurity investments will be major drivers of budget increases in 2023.

Climate change will have a mixed impact on hydropower in the Pacific Northwest, with wetter winters and springs and drier summers, BPA says.

PNM exhausted every alternative before postponing the retirement of the coal-fired San Juan plant until the end of this summer, a utility executive said.

Drought, wildfires, plant retirements and transmission outages have elevated the risk of supply shortfalls in the West, Texas, MISO and SPP, NERC said.

FERC approved a slate of penalties against an electric utility, an RTO and a government agency for violations of NERC reliability standards.

FERC ordered six more entities to refund the premiums they earned from sales into CAISO during the severe heat wave of August 2020.

BPA should have enough generation to avoid capacity deficits if it decides to join the “binding” phase of the Western Resource Adequacy Program.

Steven Noess, NERC's director of regulatory programs, will join WECC as its new vice president of reliability and security oversight.