Spotlight Articles

Today's LiveWire Spotlight serves as a reminder that the updates to three NERC standards – two under the Personnel Performance, Training, and Qualifications (PER) category and the other under Transmission…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a newly posted white paper capturing the thinking of project team designing new CIP requirements addressing the security risks of virtualization technologies. They are acting on…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the initial draft of NERC’s 2020 Business Plan and Budget. In it, the Finance Team projects next year's combined capital and expense budget at $83…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight reviews NPCC's new Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Forum, which was launched on May 16th to provide open discussions of DER issues, enhance awareness, understand the impacts to…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines the results of the latest NERC Performance Survey delivered at last May's Member Representatives Committee (MRC) meeting. In it, the ERO attained the strongest marks for…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight assesses the Centralized Organization Registration System (CORES) technology launch scheduled for the week of June 17th. The new platform will allow Registered Entities to submit new registration…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines NERC's latest performance assessment, their third self-analysis since being certified as the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) by FERC in July, 2006. The report cites measurable improvements…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at NERC’s 3-day Human Performance Conference held earlier this year in Atlanta. Experts from NERC, industry, and consulting firms probed deeply into the causes of human…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates NERC’s Notices of Penalty from January 1 thru April 30, 2019. The article captures facts, risk assessments, and corrective actions taken for 27 separate findings reported…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at the latest status of the BES cyber and physical security initiatives presented at the 1Q2019 meeting of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee (CIPC). The meeting…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates two new reference documents addressing the actions expected of Compliance Enforcement Authority (CEA) staff to avoid uneven assessments of violations/penalties. The first precisely describes the monthly…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates the initial posting of PRC-024-3, the NERC standard governing generator frequency and voltage protection settings. The updates act on the findings from the Los Angeles Blue…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight looks at FERC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) to approve CIP-012-1, the NERC reliability standard addressing the confidentiality and integrity of BES data exchanged between Control Centers.…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates an executive order issued on March 26 by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, directing a coordinated approach to improve the Nation’s resilience to…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines a recent Technical Conference assembled by FERC and the DOE to explore the need for further investment in security infrastructure. The goal of the conference was…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article looks at NERC's proposed plan to transfer the reliability oversight responsibilities in Florida from the FRCC Regional Entity to SERC. In it, the ERO requests that…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article evaluates the findings and recommendations from Commission Staff who attended a series of CIP cyber security audits in 2016 thru 2018. Ten Lessons Learned were distilled…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article looks NERC’s ninth filing to FERC regarding the status of rulings issued by the Commission that require the ERO to take action related to Bulk Electric…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article examines a new NERC’s Lesson Learned named “Current Drone Usage”, which describes how entities are using drones to support system reliability and resilience. In it, NERC…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article looks at a new NERC’s Lessons Learned named “Substation Fires: Working with First Responders”. The document contrasts two incidents where equipment failures touched off substation fires.…