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NERC Board Chair Roy Thilly | © ERO Insider NERC’s Board of Trustees and Member Representatives Committee (MRC) will hold their first meetings of 2021 remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, board Chair Roy Thilly told the groups at their quarterly conference calls Thursday. The meetings had been planned for...

Planning has begun for GridEx VI, which will test response to a coordinated attack from a nation-state adversary, Program Manager Katherine Ledesma told the newly renamed Real Time Operating Subcommittee on Wednesday. NERC’s design group, which began work on GridEx VI in July, shared its draft scenario narrative during the...

FERC has accepted proposed revisions to seven NERC reliability standards submitted earlier this year under Project 2017-07 (Standards alignment with registration) (RD20-4). The commission on Monday also approved the 2021 business plans and budgets for NERC, the regional entities and the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (WIRAB) (RR20-6). NERC CEO...

FERC last week approved a settlement between SERC Reliability and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) for violations of NERC reliability standards. The ERO notified the commission of the settlement, which carries a penalty of $430,000, in a Notice of Penalty (NOP) on Sept. 30 (NP20-22); FERC indicated in a notice...

NERC is set to begin training registered entities on its new Align software project and Secure Evidence Locker (SEL) by the end of the year. Training will follow a staggered schedule, with the Midwest Reliability Organization and Texas Reliability Entity going first. Align — formerly known as the CMEP (Compliance...

Cyber hygiene and poor-quality modeling continue to head the list of major risks to the stability of the bulk power system, according to NERC’s 2021 ERO Enterprise Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program (CMEP) Implementation Plan. NERC prepares the list of risk elements annually to help regional entities and utilities plan...

FERC on Thursday gave NERC and WECC the go-ahead to introduce regional reliability standard BAL-002-WECC-3, but it also ordered the organizations to return in 2023 with a progress report on its effects on the bulk power system (RM19-20). The new standard takes the place of BAL-002-WECC-2a, approved by FERC in...

In its latest round of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) audits, FERC noted registered entities have made significant progress in meeting or exceeding the reliability standards’ mandatory requirements. However, the commission still noted several "potential compliance infractions" and other areas for improvement. FERC’s "Lessons Learned from Commission-Led CIP Reliability Audits" report...

FERC on Friday rejected a challenge by security activist Michael Mabee against NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability standards (EL20-46). Mabee filed his complaint May 12, focusing primarily on CIP-013-1 (Cybersecurity — Supply chain risk management) and its supposed deficiencies relating to President Trump’s executive order of May 1 declaring...

FERC on Wednesday approved a settlement between WECC and an unnamed entity in the Western Interconnection for violations of NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability standards (NP20-21). The settlement does not involve a monetary penalty. NERC notified the commission of the agreement Aug. 30 in a Notice of Penalty (NOP),...