Category — NERC News

On September 15, 2011, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing to approve revisions to eight critical infrastructure protection (“CIP”) reliability standards, CIP-002-4 through CIP-009-4, which were developed and submitted to the Commission by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”).  [Read more →]

On September 15, 2011, FERC issued two final rules approving NERC’s interpretation of the Transmission Operations Reliability Standard, TOP-001-1, and the Transmission Planning Reliability Standard, TPL-002-0. [Read more →]

On August 29, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued an order initiating review of a Notice of Penalty (“NOP”) issued by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) on July 28, 2011, against Southwestern Power Administration (“SWPA”) for violating Reliability Standards Requirements for Critical Infrastructure Protection.  SWPA and the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”) filed an application for review with FERC arguing that NERC lacks the statutory authority to assess monetary penalties against a federal agency, and thus the NOP against SWPA must be dismissed. [Read more →]

On May 11, 2011 Commissioner Phillip Moeller of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) and Gerry Cauley, President and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), offered their thoughts on ensuring the reliability of the bulk power system in a keynote address at a conference presented by the Electric Utility Consultants, Inc. (“EUCI”) and hosted by Troutman Sanders LLP.  [Read more →]

On May 9, 2011, Chairman Jon Wellinghoff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) and Gerry Cauley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) announced that they will work together to look into the causes of electrical outages and disruptions of natural gas delivery in the Southwest during February 2011. [Read more →]