Spotlight Articles

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a program proposal made to the Reliability and Security Technical Committee (RSTC) offering a conceptual approach to help them deal with the deficiencies in the historical…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates NERC's most recent Reliability Guideline approval.  This document offers technical and logistical assistance to planners looking to simulate utility (U-DER) and retail-scale (R-DER) renewables in BES reliability…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates a NERC/FERC joint cyber study conducted in the hope of identifying the best practices specific to the cyber incident response plans developed by Registered Entities.  The…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') recent report outlining the progress made in addressing the U.S President’s March 2019 order to mitigate the risk from natural…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines NERC's GMD data reporting application - a portal for Generator Owners and Transmission Owners to submit Geomagnetic Disturbance data.  This is an activity directed by FERC when they approved…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates several of the most recent cyber security vulnerability summaries posted by the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT).  The topics range from the unsafe use…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the descriptions, resolutions, and the penalties assessed for Reliability Standards’ violations from April 1 thru June 30, 2020.  Three filings stuck out due to the…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a joint NERC-WECC effort looking to identify and correct deficiencies in the base cases used to simulate dynamic disturbances in the Western Interconnection.  The need arose from…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at NERC’s 2020 Reliability Report, which evaluates the North American Bulk Power System’s resilience, security, frequency response, and exposure to reliability threats during Calendar Year 2019.  The…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight reminds Clients of four new/updated NERC standards that become mandatory and effective next month.  Three appear in the Critical Infrastructure Protection category (CIP-005-6, CIP-010-3, and CIP-013-1; the…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at three NERC Lessons Learned; “teachable moments” where Protection System Misoperations threatened electric system reliability.  Each had a very different root cause - ranging from a defective relay circuit…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a draft Security Guideline, which consolidates multiple studies on supply chain procurement language provided by the electric industry vendor community in response to a request by…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight addresses the initial draft of NERC's Version 3 Reliability Guideline describing how to properly prepare generating units for the onset of cold weather.  Only minor changes were…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the updated versions of two Critical Infrastructure Protection standards (CIP-004-7 and CIP-011-3) intended to allow alternative protective strategies that secure access to BES Cyber System…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates the third postings of CIP-005-7, CIP-010-4, and CIP-013-2, which act on FERC’s directives to apply vendor procurement, remote access, and software source controls to equipment other…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines NERC's proposed Compliance Guidance for Cloud Solutions and Encrypting BCSI.  The document identifies the security tasks owned by the cloud service provider under shared responsibility scenarios…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at FERC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) to approve the latest Wholesale Electric Quadrant (WEQ) Business Practice Standards – of which several have been updated to support NERC…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the last of four articles on FERC’s 2020 Technical Conference regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the energy industry.  Panel IV’s topic was “Access to Capital –…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the third of four articles on FERC’s 2020 Technical Conference regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the energy industry.  Panel III’s topic was “Natural Gas and Oil…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight is the second of four articles on FERC’s 2020 Technical Conference regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the energy industry.  Panel II’s topic was “Electricity Demand and Transmission…