On March 20, 2014, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) and two separate, but related, Orders to improve the coordination of scheduling natural gas pipeline capacity to meet increasing demand from gas-powered electricity markets. Specifically, the NOPR proposes to amend FERC Regulation 248.12, which incorporates by reference the standards set by the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) for scheduling the transportation service of interstate natural gas pipelines.

The NOPR’s proposed amendments would (1) start the natural gas operating day (Gas Day) earlier—at 4:00 a.m. CCT, (2) start the Timely Nomination Cycle later—at 1:00 p.m. CCT, and (3) modify the current intraday nomination timeline to increase the number of standard intraday nomination cycles from two to four, to include 8:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. CCT. FERC’s proposed changes to Gas Day aim to synchronize the gas and electric operating days in response to increased interdependence between natural gas and gas-fired electric power generators.