With electric sector stakeholders growing increasingly concerned about the reliability impacts of data centers and other computational large loads, NERC’s Board of Trustees agreed April 16 to send industry a Level 3 alert detailing essential actions for registered entities to help reduce risks to the grid.

The board also approved an updated agreement between NERC, the Northeast Power Coordinating Committee and Nova Scotia Power, reflecting changes to Nova Scotia’s electric regulatory structure.

Alert to be Issued in May

A Level 3 alert is NERC’s most urgent advisory, the only type of alert that requires specific actions from utilities and requires board approval. The ERO has issued only two previous Level 3 alerts: the first, in 2023, concerned protecting grid assets from extreme cold weather, and the second, in 2025, related to inverter-based resources’ performance and modeling.

NERC plans to issue the alert by May 4, Director of Reliability Risk Darrell Moore told trustees. It follows a September 2025 Level 2 alert, the responses to which led NERC to conclude in a March report that the industry is unprepared for the reliability challenges posed by the rapid growth of computational large loads, with many utilities lacking a formalized definition of “large load” and most not having taken any steps to meet NERC’s recommendations. (See NERC: Large Load Responses Show Action Needed from ERO.)

The Level 3 alert will include seven essential actions for transmission owners, planners and operators, planning coordinators, reliability coordinators and balancing authorities:

• • Develop lists of modeling data, settings and parameters needed from computational large loads for distribution to TOs.
  • Study the stability margin for areas with computational loads at least every year.
  • Revise the definition of “qualified change” and set up studies of local area protection, stability limits and other factors in relation to computational loads.
  • Establish a commissioning process for computational loads.
  • Implement system-side corrective actions to ensure no loss of firm load for computational loads due to normally cleared faults.
  • Install dynamic fault recording devices to help study electrical performance of computational load facilities during system disturbances.
  • Improve communication capabilities with large loads for better situational awareness.

Entities will be required to respond to a list of 30 questions (29 multiple choice and one text) by Aug. 3 to evaluate their implementation of the essential actions. NERC will provide a report to FERC on the responses within 30 days of the deadline.

Moore added that, “out of an abundance of caution,” NERC’s management also was seeking “limited delegation” to NERC CEO Jim Robb of the board’s authority to alter the alert before publication. Moore said this request would give Robb and his team the flexibility to make needed updates in response to feedback from FERC, NERC’s standing committees or trade groups without going back to the board.

Board Chair Suzanne Keenan thanked NERC staff for their work and reminded trustees that “for this … alert, what would have normally been done sequentially is being done in parallel,” echoing statements by Robb in 2025 about the ERO’s large loads work. (See NERC Navigates Turbulent Reliability Landscape in 2026.) NERC’s Standards Committee recently approved a project to develop standards focusing on “near-term” risks associated with computational large loads, and the ERO also is operating a task force to examine other actions to help industry.

Amendment to Nova Scotia Agreement

In the meeting’s other action item, trustees voted to accept an amendment to the memorandum of understanding between NERC, NPCC and Nova Scotia Power. The amendment must be approved by all parties to the MOU before it takes effect.

NERC and NPCC signed the current MOU with Nova Scotia Power in 2010, NERC Senior Vice President for Regulatory Oversight Howard Gugel told trustees. The ERO has similar MOUs with every other Canadian province and the appropriate regional entity that govern how NERC’s standards are applied and how compliance monitoring and enforcement are performed.

In 2024, the Nova Scotia General Assembly passed the Energy Reform Act, leading to the establishment of IESO Nova Scotia the following year. IESO-NS since has taken over the functions of planning coordinator, planning authority, resource planner and transmission planner, and is expected to begin performing the transmission operator and balancing authority functions in 2027. The act also created the Nova Scotia Energy Board and “provided [it] with the authority to adopt, monitor and enforce NERC reliability standards in Nova Scotia.”

The changes will make Nova Scotia’s energy regulation “a little bit more consistent with the way the other provinces work,” Gugel said, but the existing MOU “was tied into the way things were previously done.”

The amendment will:

• • Add IESO-NS as a party to the MOU;
  • Provide a mechanism and structure for NPCC to perform compliance monitoring and enforcement activities for NERC standards;
  • Replace references to the previous regulators with the NSEB; and
  • Update contact information for the relevant parties.

As with the Level 3 alert, the board also agreed to delegate Robb the authority to “finalize and execute the … MOU on behalf of NERC,” along with General Counsel Sonia Rocha.