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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...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — Utilities aren’t getting the "actionable" intelligence they need to defend themselves against cyber threats, the head of the Large Public Power Council said Tuesday. John Di Stasio | © ERO Insider "The classification system relative to classified information came out of a national security...

By Tom Kleckner ERCOT is seeking more time to hash out the details around a Nodal Protocol revision request that would establish notification responsibilities for the grid operator and its market participants during cybersecurity incidents. During a workshop Tuesday, ERCOT staff said they will ask stakeholders to table NPRR928 in...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. Phase 2 of NERC’s Standards Efficiency Review has narrowed its focus to four tasks, tabling two others for potential work by other committees, members of the Phase 2 team said last week. In a June 17 conference call, the team said it would focus its work...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. Consolidated Edison’s Anthony Natale has summarized what he’s learned about substation fires over two decades in several bullet points. But the biggest lesson, he says, is one of humility. "These are low-frequency, high-hazard events. We don’t do them often enough to get good at them," he...