ARLINGTON, Va. –As demand for energy increases across the transportation, building, and industrial sectors, the power grid must keep pace. To address this challenge, NEMA has developed two new standards that enable utilities, grid operators, energy users, and developers to optimize grid reliability and performance by deploying state-of-the-art technologies. The Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) Standard (NEMA US 80062-2025) provides a set of performance criteria for the design and manufacture of grid-enhancing devices, and the Guide for Grid Edge Technologies (NEMA US 80063-2025) provides a comprehensive framework for the design, application, and performance evaluation of grid-edge technologies (GETs).
NEMA’s FACTS Standard concerns shunt-connected devices for reactive power control and series-connected devices for active power flow management, both of which enable utilities to improve the stability and reliability of the grid.
“The mounting pressure that AI data centers and the electrification of transportation, buildings, and manufacturing are putting on the transmission system jeopardizes grid reliability and affordability for all of us,” said Patrick Hughes, NEMA Senior Vice President of Strategy, Industry, and Technical Affairs. “The FACTS Standard helps utilities and grid operators maintain an efficient and flexible bulk power system at a moment when we rely more than ever on a reliable flow of electricity to power our daily lives and an electrified economy. By driving the adoption of these systems, our standard will promote integration of variable renewable power resources and help meet demand from large and distributed loads—like data centers—that have the potential to overload transmission networks.”
NEMA’s FACTS Standard accelerates the diffusion of Flexible AC Transmission Systems across the power and utilities sector, which will enable utilities, system operators, and other end-users to defer or reduce the need for additional infrastructure, leading to lower costs for consumers. Beyond equipping utilities and system operators with more precise and responsive controls, FACTS benefit large energy consumers such as data centers and manufacturing plants by shortening the time needed to secure permissions to build and operate from their local utilities.
NEMA’s Guide for Grid Edge Technologies concerns smart solar panel inverters, smart meters, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and other “behind-the-meter” distributed energy resources (DERs). By unifying how these technologies, their applications, and their performance parameters are defined, evaluated, and adapted with a library of standards relevant to GETs, NEMA’s guide helps mitigate operational risks for OEMs, utilities, DER aggregators, and policymakers.
“Our increasingly electrified and digital economy needs a more flexible and intelligent grid,” said Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. (MEPPI) CEO, Tricia Breeger. “The transformative capabilities of grid-enhancing and grid edge technologies offer electric power system stakeholders a readily available pressure relief valve, equipping utilities and grid operators with the means to reliably meet real and anticipated power demand growth. These software-driven solutions are no longer a future concept; they are the key to unlocking a more resilient, efficient, and sustainable grid to meet today’s demands.”
NEMA’s Grid Sector produced the FACTS Standard and Guide for Grid Edge Technologies to accelerate construction of a more flexible, capable, and affordable grid.
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