January’s Deep Freeze Proved Doable for U.S. Natural Gas, Power, Avoiding Past ‘Catastrophic Outages’

January’s frigid temperatures, some of the lowest in decades, proved to be no match for the nation’s bulk power systems as better communication and collaboration between the natural gas and power industries overcame the winter storms, federal officials said.

A joint review recently completed by FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and its entities showed the progress made in overcoming previous winter storms.

The findings show “just how important these types of reviews can be,” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie said. “Clearly, we have learned important lessons from earlier catastrophic outages.”