Spotlight Articles

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.…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article evaluates the Standards Authorization Request (SAR) for Project 2019-02 - BES Cyber System Information Access Management. The purpose of the SAR is to modify the CIP…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article examines the initial version of a NERC Application Guide describing computer modeling that most accurately represents synchronous and inverter-based resources. The support document primarily addresses three…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article looks at the Standards Efficiency Initiative Phase I recommendations. Several dozen reliability requirements have been identified by NERC as unproductive, burdensome, and/or overly complex and which…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article examines NERC's analysis of an oscillation event that impacted the entire Eastern Interconnection on January 11, 2019 for about eighteen minutes. The incident induced 0.25 Hertz…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article examines the Inverter-Based Resource Workshop held last February 12th and 13th. The technical conference was sponsored by NERC’s Inverter-Based Resource Performance Working Group (IRPWG) and addressed…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight article examines five new balancing and emergency operations standards that become mandatory and effective in the U.S. on April 1. The updates were either directed by FERC…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight evaluates a white paper posted by the Personnel Certification and Governance Committee (PCGC) proposing the consolidation of all four NERC System Operator credentials into one. The PCGC…

Today's LiveWire Spotlight examines six concepts floated by the Standards Efficiency Review project team intended to reduce the regulatory burden without impacting safe, secure, and reliable operations. Once approved, the…