FERC issues notices of proposed rulemaking on physical security and protection system maintenance and a final order on generator and transmission relay loadability

Jul 24

At its meeting on July 17, 2014, FERC took three significant actions.

Physical Security NOPR

First, and most significantly, FERC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) proposing to approve NERC’s proposed Reliability Standard CIP-014-1, which addresses physical security of certain transmission substations that are the most critical to the operation of the Bulk-Power System. In a blog article we posted last March, we reported that FERC had directed NERC to promulgate new standards related to physical security within 90 days after significant attention to the issue was raised in the press and in Congress earlier in the year. Reliability Standard CIP-014-1 tracks the directives FERC had set forth in March to establish standards that provided for the identification of the substations most critical to Bulk-Power System reliability, development of risk assessments and security plans for such critical substations, and verification of those assessments and plans.

Although FERC proposes to approve Reliability Standard CIP-014-1, FERC does propose to direct NERC to make two changes and to provide two informational filings.

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