Dive Brief:
- Federal regulators have approved the the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's (NERC) risk-based approach to monitoring and enforcing compliance with mandatory electric reliability standards.
- FERC last week signed off on implementation and continued development of the Reliability Assurance Initiative (RAI) proposed by NERC, subject to an annual reporting requirement.
- According to NERC, the RAI approach to compliance focuses resources on higher-risk issues that matter more to reliability, while still identifying, correcting and tracking lesser-risk issues.
Dive Insight:
Federal electricity regulators authorized NERC to move ahead with its RAI approach to reliability compliance, granting flexibility to deal with higher-risk issues. The Reliability Assurance Initiative builds on NERC's Find, Fix, Track and Report program that is used to resolve noncompliance issues posing only minimal or moderate risks to the bulk power system.
According to NERC, the RAI will provide a reasonable assurance of reliability through compliance monitoring and appropriate deterrence through enforcement for minimal risk issues.
In addition to the conditions required by the order, NERC was directed to submit a compliance filing, due within 90 days, to revise its rules of procedures to include the RAI concepts and programs in its Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program.
In a separate order, FERC approved a new reliability standard that allows electric power system planners and operators to collect demand, energy and related data to support reliability studies and assessments. FERC said the standard will promote consistent documentation, information sharing and efficient planning practices across the industry as well as help identify needed system reinforcements.