Public Power - January/February 2008 - (Page 38) RELIABILITY Settling in to Reliability Mandates by William Atkinson Editor’s note: The author interviewed Nick Henery before Henery left the American Public Power Association to work for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Statements attributed to Henery in this article were made under his “old hat.”) The2008 with less than enelectric utility industry ters six months of experience with the new mandatory reliability standards. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to designate an electric reliability organization to implement fed- bility standards. In April 2006, NERC submitted 107 reliability standards to FERC. While it was a huge and daunting task for NERC to create the standards, it fortunately had a good start. The 107 standards were originally created by NERC in 2003 or 2004 and called “Version 0” standards, according to Nick Henery, the former director of reliability, compliance and standards for the American Public Power Association, who now works in the FERC Office of Electric Reliability. The Version 0 standards were voluntary and were created to be policies, Henery said. When federal law called for reliability mandates, NERC began working to convert the 107 policies into standards. On March 16, 2007, FERC approved 83 of the new stan- Henery said. Despite the fluid state of 56 of the standards, 83 of the 107 standards (the 27 that were approved outright and the 56 that are being modified) went into effect June 18, 2007. “These 83 have been approved for mandatory enforcement, including applicability to all registered users, owners, and operators,” said David Whiteley, executive vice president of NERC. Work to revise and clarify 56 standards continues. The commission has yet to act on the remaining 24 standards, he said. “Most of these 24 relate to the eight regional reliability organizations and some activity they have to undertake, or they are ‘fill in the blank’ standards,” he said. Historically, NERC, as a voluntary organization, worked through the regional reliability or- It is not clear where the bulk power system begins and ends. A 765-kV line is obviously part of the system. However, what about a 69-kV line in a community? eral reliability standards under FERC supervision. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., which has overseen voluntary reliability efforts in the industry since 1968, was the obvious candidate for the enforcement role. After the Midwest and Northeast blackout of August 2003, federal investigators recommended implementation of mandatory, enforceable reliability standards with penalties for non-compliance. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires all users, owners and operators of the nation’s transmission grid to comply with the FERC-approved relia38 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008 dards. Of the 83 approved standards, 56 were conditionally approved and the commission set aside the other 24 until NERC supplied additional details. The details are in FERC’s Order 693, “Mandatory Reliability Standards for the Bulk Power System.” The 56 conditionally approved standards were returned to NERC to address issues ranging from enforceability (to be rewritten in a style appropriate for a compliance program—so that people involved (the regulated and the enforcers) could easily understand them and that they are not ambiguous or unclear, ganizations to develop and implement standards on a voluntary basis. Several standards required the regional reliability organizations to take some action, such as determining how often something is done or to what level it is done, said Whiteley. Which entity has responsibility for the 24 pending standards is not clear. “As the standards were being considered for approval and implementation, FERC determined that the regional reliability organizations are not users, owners, and operators,” said Whiteley. “There was no way these could be applied, so FERC is holding them for the present time.” PUBLIC POWER
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.