STEP 1: Project Identified in Reliability Standards Development Plan or Initiated by the Standards Committee Draft SAR STEP 2: Post SAR for 30-Day Informal Comment Period STEP 3: Develop Draft of Standard, Implementation Plan, and VRFs and VSLs Form Drafting Team If Needed, Conduct Field Test of Requirements Conduct Quality Review Collect Informal Feedback Step 4: Obtain Standards Committee Approval to Post for Comment and Ballot Step 5: Comment Period and Ballot Form Ballot Pool During First 30 Calendar Days of 45-Day Comment Period Conduct Ballot During Last 10 Days of Comment Period Conduct Nonbinding Poll of VRFs and VSLs If Significant Changes are Needed to the Draft Reliability Standard Then Conduct Additional Ballot (Repeat Step 5) Step 6: Post Response to Comments Step 7: Conduct Final Ballot 10 Day Period Step 8: Submit Reliability Standard and Implementation Plan to BOT for Adoption and Approval Step 9: Submit all BOT-Approved Documents to Applicable Governmental Authorities for Approval figure 7. A process diagram for establishing or revising NERC reliability standards. (Courtesy of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.) Of the ensuing changes, one of the most important was the creation of regional reliability councils. the northeast Power Coordinating Council was the first, established in January 1966. 94 ieee power & energy magazine in the ensuing years, up to ten such organizations were formed across north America. their primary mission was to establish forums where members developed reliability criteria for plan- ning and operating the collective bulk power systems of the members. these criteria were uniform and nondiscriminatory, and all members pledged to observe them. the reliability councils may/june 2017