Standards/Programs

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By Amanda Durish Cook INDIANAPOLIS — State regulators should establish standards to ensure the cybersecurity of distributed energy resources, experts said at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ 2019 Summer Policy Summit last week. More DERs means more consumers joining the grid — and "more credit card numbers, more...

By Amanda Durish Cook INDIANAPOLIS — State regulators considered the impact of a prolonged blackout for about half the country during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ first-ever "black sky" exercise July 21. The simulation, part of the 2019 Summer Policy Summit, focused on terrorist-originated electromagnetic pulses. John Heltzel,...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. NERC stakeholders have until 8 p.m. ET Friday to weigh in on proposed changes to reliability standard PRC-024-2 concerning inverter-based generation resources. The proposal is intended to ensure that generator owners (GOs), operators, developers and equipment manufacturers understand how their plants are expected to respond to...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. FERC on Thursday called for reliability rules requiring generator owners and operators to winterize their units and provide their reliability coordinators (RCs) and balancing authorities (BAs) with information about their preparations. The commission issued the directive as a result of a joint FERC-NERC investigation into the...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners this week completed the release of a suite of tools it says will allow state regulators to gauge their utilities’ cybersecurity preparedness — without becoming technical experts. NARUC said the two newest offerings, a template of questions and an...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. Consolidated Edison blamed a failed relay protection system for the blackout that darkened Broadway stages and left Manhattan residents without air conditioning, subways or elevators for up to five hours Saturday. About 72,000 customers were affected between West 30th and West 72nd streets, and from the...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. An analysis by a half-dozen Eastern RTOs and utilities has found no substantial gains from changing how they measure frequency response, according to the standard drafting team considering modifications to BAL-003-1.1 (Project 2017-01). BAL-003-1.1 (Frequency Response and Frequency Bias Setting) states that a balancing authority typically...

By Tom Kleckner SPP last week reiterated its plans to recover the costs of a NERC penalty for reliability violations by dipping into its employee compensation pool (ER19-97). In a heavily redacted filing shared with SPP stakeholders at 4:47 p.m. on July 3 — just before the Independence Day holiday...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — Registered entities asked FERC on Thursday to clear the way for their use of cloud computing, which they said could improve system visibility, security and availability while saving money. Speaking at FERC’s annual reliability technical conference, representatives of the American Public Power Association, MISO,...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — Panelists at FERC’s annual reliability technical conference Thursday praised the Electric Reliability Organization’s maturation but acknowledged continuing challenges with the speed of standards development and the consistency of compliance determinations. Nick Brown | © ERO Insider SPP CEO Nick Brown said that while NERC...