By Holden Mann NERC says it is confident the electric industry is "taking aggressive steps to confront" the COVID-19 pandemic, based on responses to its recent Level 2 alert. The alert was sent on March 10 and advised registered entities to maintain situational awareness, reinforce good personal hygiene practices, and...

By Holden Mann Last year’s GridEx V security exercise provided the electricity industry with a number of lessons about crisis management that are proving timely in the current COVID-19 pandemic, according to NERC officials. "One of the reasons we do exercises like this is so we are prepared to deal...

By Holden Mann FERC accepted settlements Friday with Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and two utilities owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy — Nevada Power (NEVP) and Sierra Pacific Power Co. (SPPC) — for violations of NERC reliability standards. The settlements with NEVP and SPPC carried penalties of $231,000...

By Holden Mann The team working on NERC’s proposed standard for cold weather preparedness plans to meet again in the next two weeks to finish working through the latest round of comments on its draft standard authorization request (SAR). Team members had planned to address the comments this week but...

By Holden Mann The standard drafting team updating NERC’s standards to address cybersecurity supply chain risks is seeking a way forward in the face of widespread opposition to its proposed changes. Project 2019-03 was initiated in response to FERC Order 850, which directed NERC to modify standards to address electronic...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. and Michael Yoder FERC on Tuesday approved the PJM Transmission Owners’ critical infrastructure mitigation plan, the subject of several months of contentious debates over complaints that it lacks transparency and improperly restricts input by stakeholders and the RTO (ER20-841). The TOs’ plan, which details a confidential...

By Holden Mann The drafting team working on changes to NERC standards on supply chain risks will regroup next week after an initial ballot indicated widespread opposition to the team’s proposed changes. Comments on Project 2019-03 opened on Feb. 7 and closed last Wednesday. With 266 votes cast, the weighted...

By Holden Mann For Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI), the results of a 2016 audit for compliance with reliability standard FAC-008-3 came as a shock. The utility had assumed it was complying with the standard, which governs the determination of transmission facility ratings; instead, auditors discovered that the software it...

By Holden Mann NERC has opened a formal comment period on a draft reliability guideline covering the collection of data on distributed energy resources to run through April 24. The draft guideline was developed by the System Planning Impacts from Distributed Energy Resources (SPIDER) working group and approved for comment...

ATLANTA — NERC’s Operating, Planning and Critical Infrastructure Planning committees gathered this week for their last face-to-face meetings before turning their functions over to the new Reliability and Security Technical Committee (RSTC) in June. PC Discusses Distributed Energy White Paper In an unusual move, the Planning Committee opened up the...