Grid Officials Grapple With Clean Energy’s Reliability Threats

The accelerating deployment of clean energy requires regulators to tackle emerging electric grid reliability risks, in part by a federal overhaul of transmission planning and generator reviews, US and regional officials said Thursday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s efforts this year to require electric utilities to look further into the future and weigh a broader set of scenarios will protect the grid from power shortfalls, said Eric Vandenberg, deputy director of the commission’s Office of Electric Reliability.

The commission is “really creating the opportunities for utilities to look longer-term and think bigger,” Vandenberg told a conference in Washington hosted by ...