NERC’s Reliability and Security Technical Committee will soon have new leadership, after members chose a chair and vice chair at the RSTC’s quarterly meeting Dec. 10.

Current Vice Chair John Stephens from City Utilities of Springfield will move up to replace departing Chair Rich Hydzik of Avista after his term expires Dec. 31, with Srinivas Kappagantula of Arevon Energy taking Stephens’ role. An RSTC chair and vice chair can only serve a single two-year term, so Stephens will step down Dec. 31, 2027, barring unforeseen circumstances.

NERC Senior Counsel Candice Castaneda also observed that, since the RSTC’s last meeting, industry stakeholders have chosen a new slate of members in an election that ended Nov. 21. The newly elected members — some of whom are already on the RSTC — will serve two-year terms beginning Feb. 1, 2026, and ending Jan. 31, 2028.

• • Sector 1 (Investor-owned utility): Vinit Gupta, ITC Holdings
  • Sector 2 (State/municipal utility): David Grubbs, City of Garland
  • Sector 3 (Cooperative utility): Nathan Brown, Georgia System Operations
  • Sector 4 (Federal or provincial utility/federal power marketing administration): Wayne Guttormson, SaskPower
  • Sector 5 (Transmission-dependent utility): John Lemire, North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation
  • Sector 6 (Merchant electricity generator): Brett Kruse, Calpine
  • Sector 7 (Electricity marketer): Jodirah Green, ACES Power
  • Sector 9 (Small end-use electricity customer): T. David Wand, New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel
  • Sector 10 (ISO/RTO): Aaron Markham, NYISO
  • Sector 12 (State government): Cezar Panait, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission

Sector 8 (Large end-use electricity customer) had two open seats, for terms expiring Jan. 31, 2027, and Jan 31, 2028. Venona Greaff of Occidental and Mike Della Penna of Google were elected for this sector, and a sector election will now be held to determine who will serve out which term.

Nominations are also underway through Dec. 19 for the open at-large RSTC members, five of whom will serve two-year terms ending Jan. 31, 2028, and two of whom will serve out the terms of departing members that expire Jan. 31, 2027. The chosen representatives will join the three other at-large members whose terms end in 2027.

NERC’s Board of Trustees must approve the RSTC leadership changes and membership at its next meeting, scheduled for Feb. 11, 2026, in Savannah, Ga.

White Papers, Guidelines and Reference Documents

Following the leadership election, members approved the RSTC’s 2026-2027 Strategic Plan. The document sets expectations and deliverables for the RSTC in the coming year while guiding coordination with other standing committees.

Next, members approved a security guideline for addressing cybersecurity incidents affecting vendors of grid equipment. The RSTC’s Supply Chain Subcommittee developed the guideline in recognition of the risk that cyberattacks on vendors could pose to the security of the electric grid. While following the guideline is not mandatory, it does present “key practices and information” to maintain reliable operation.

The SCS also presented another guideline for approval offering “an industry-standard guide for … the development of procurement language to mitigate supply chain security risks that may be introduced by vendors.” The document provides key considerations for procurement language and suggestions for supply chain risk mitigation requirements.

Another guideline on the use of cloud computing for grid management came from the Security Working Group, which wrote that “understanding security in these complex environments is a common challenge in industry.” The document “presents basic cloud concepts, including the principles of information protection,” and is meant to supplement previous guidance on using encryption in cloud environments.

RSTC members then approved a white paper from the System Planning Impacts from Distributed Energy Resources Working Group on the impact of distributed energy resource aggregators and DER management systems on the working group’s DER modeling framework. The white paper’s recommendations touch on collection and management of DER data.

Finally, the committee approved updates to a technical reference document on dynamic load modeling, intended “to reflect the current state of the art.” The new document includes updates to industrial load parameters, recommendations for use of the complex load model and changes to the load modeling data tool.