Spotlight Articles

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines the ERO’s Revised Long-Term Strategy Document used by NERC and the Regions to identify and address threats to the BPS.  Two driving factors are cited: Significant…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at a white paper jointly authored by NERC and FERC staff proposing modifications to the public disclosure rules related to Notices of Penalty for violations of…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a mandatory data request authorized by NERC’s Board of Trustees (BOT) after reviewing a staff report addressing the effectiveness of the three supply chain standards.  It  consists…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the near term (Phase 1) objectives of NERC’s Task Force assigned to assess BPS vulnerabilities to EMP and identify areas for improvement.  The EMP Task…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight addresses a recently released NERC Reliability Assessment that examines past oscillation events from the Eastern, Western, and Texas Interconnections to better understand the causes and forcing mechanisms.  The…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the initial draft of CIP-005-7 which incorporates an innovative strategy for developing new cyber security requirements related to virtualization technologies.  The drafting team proposes modifications that will…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates a NERC Modeling Notification which provides recommendations and guidance concerning the testing of MOD-026-1 and MOD-027-1 dynamic models.  The document is intended to assist Transmission Planners confirm…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines the progress made on the Geomagnetic Disturbance (GMD) Research Work Plan as directed by FERC in Order 830.  A report issued by NERC late last month…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the initial draft of the geomagnetic disturbance standard (TPL-007) which addresses the handling of Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) that may result from GMD “hot spot”…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a joint report issued by NERC and FERC concerning the causes of 183 generator outages, derates, or start-up failures in the south-central U.S. during unusually cold…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the last of four articles on the testimony provided at FERC’s June 27 Technical Conference.  Panel IV’s topic was “Managing Changes in Communications Technologies on the…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the third of four articles on FERC’s June 27 Technical Conference.  Panel III’s topic was “Reliability Issues Associated with Reliability Coordinator Seams”.  Representatives from several Reliability Coordinators…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the second of four articles on FERC’s June 27 Technical Conference.  Panel II’s topic was “The Impact of Cloud-Based Services and Virtualization on BES Operations, Planning and…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the first of four articles on the testimony from FERC’s June 27 Technical Conference.  Panel I’s topic was “Status of the Electric Reliability Organization and Reliability”.  Representatives from…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines FERC Docket RD19-3-000 approving without comment CIP-008-6, which expands the type, content, timelines, and recipients of cyber security incident reports.; including... …the reporting of cyber-attacks even…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at FERC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to approve TPL-001-5 addressing directives issued in Orders 754 and 786.  The Commission agrees that the proposed updates mostly satisfy their…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a new draft NERC Reliability Guideline on DER_A, the latest generic model representing small distributed energy resources in dynamic stability studies. The subject matter is aimed…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at of NERC’s 2019 Reliability Report, which evaluates the North American Bulk Power System’s resilience, security, frequency response, and exposure to reliability threats in Calendar Year…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight assesses NERC’s Lessons Learned addressing five cases where a state estimator (SE) or real-time contingency analysis (RTCA) failure could have been detected and dealt with more quickly…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines Version 4 of the Event Analysis Process. The ERO is requesting industry feedback to the modifications made after a subject matter expert periodic review of the…