About the RRC
Mission
Serve the public interest and provide the greatest long-term value to the Railbelt by working collaboratively and transparently to establish and uphold protocols that sustainably balance safety, reliability, cost, and environmental responsibility.
About
The Railbelt Reliability Council (RRC) is Alaska’s legislatively established Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) for the Railbelt bulk electric system (BES), which includes electrical generation resources, transmission lines, interconnections with neighboring systems, and associated equipment, generally operated at voltages of 69 kV or higher. As a non-profit stakeholder organization, our responsibility is to ensure a reliable, efficient, and sustainable electric grid for nearly three-quarters of Alaska’s population.
The Railbelt region stretches from Fairbanks and Delta Junction in the north to Homer and Seldovia in the south. The RRC fulfills its mission by developing and enforcing reliability standards, monitoring compliance, and leading long-term integrated resource planning. These activities help coordinate generation and transmission projects among utilities, independent power producers, and other stakeholders, supporting grid resilience, promoting transparent decision-making, and helping identify the greatest value among potential solutions.
Governed by a balanced stakeholder board and supported by technical experts, the RRC operates through an open and transparent process. Our work includes:
- Reliability Standards: Establishing and enforcing standards to maintain system stability and security.
- Integrated Resource Planning (IRP): Creating a 20-year roadmap for generation, transmission, and energy storage to meet future needs.
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Engaging utilities, regulators, consumer advocates, and environmental representatives to ensure broad input and accountability.
By focusing on long‑term planning and consistent application of reliability standards for entities operating the Railbelt BES, the RRC provides a coordinated framework that supports informed decisions and pursuit of the greatest value for the region.
RRC Governance & Balance
The RRC has a unique board structure designed to bring diverse perspectives together in the public interest. This structure is intended to reflect the broad spectrum of interests that either impact or are impacted by a reliable, robust electric system. The board structure meets strict requirements in RCA regulations that strive to include multiple and diverse stakeholder perspectives and ensure those interests are balanced to accomplish RRC business. Regulations require interests to be assigned different classifications, and balance is demonstrated through a combination of board composition, voting rules, and ensuring directors have sufficient resources to adequately represent their classes, regardless of their individual technical backgrounds.
Ensuring balanced representation in product development and board decisions is a core tenet of Alaska’s first ERO. The RRC achieves balance by composing its board in number and by interest to ensure no one interest has overwhelming power, and by enacting certain Board procedures and voting requirements to make sure each interest is heard and considered in decision-making. Notably, many core RRC Board actions require a supermajority vote of directors, ensuring significant decisions are made only if supported by multiple Railbelt constituencies.