By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. and North American energy regulators on Thursday issued recommendations and mandatory electric reliability standards for utilities they hope will prevent a repeat of February’s deadly power outages in Texas during a deep freeze.

Over 100 people were killed and 4.5 million lost power in Texas after the freeze.

Rich Glick of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), chairman, stated, “I can’t, and won’t allow this report to serve no other purpose than to gather dust off the shelf.” He spoke about preliminary standards and recommendations that regulators are expected to approve in November.

The recommendations were released by the FERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) and NERC, which include revised reliability standards. These revisions mandate that power utilities identify and protect critical components for cold weather, retrofit and build new units, as well as develop and implement corrective plans in the event of outages due to freeze.

The Texas Electric Reliability Council of Texas is the grid operator. FERC has no jurisdiction. Jim Robb (CEO and president of NERC) stated his company has jurisdiction over reliability questions in Texas.

In 2011, FERC looked into ways that Texas could be protected from outages caused by a warmer than usual cold snap. Its recommendations included winterization of and other installations. The grid was left vulnerable because Texas authorities did not implement those recommendations.

Texas regulators continue to work on ways to safeguard the grid against extreme weather.

Robb stated that “the work done by the team here is additive to Texas’s efforts and does not conflict with them.”

ERCOT (Texas Public Utilities Commission), which oversees Texas’s grid system, and Robb did not respond to reporters immediately.