The first release of the Align software platform and ERO Secure Evidence Locker (SEL) went live Wednesday, marking a major milestone in the effort to improve and standardize compliance monitoring and reporting processes across the ERO Enterprise.

Functionality for Release 1 includes allowing registered entities to create and submit self-reports and self-logs through Align, create and manage mitigating activities and mitigation plans, and respond to requests for information, NERC said in a release. The program is in effect for the Midwest Reliability Organization, the Texas Reliability Entity and NERC.

WECC will go live with Release 1 on May 10, and Northeast Power Coordinating Council, ReliabilityFirst and SERC Reliability will join on May 24, according to a training webinar conducted by Texas RE last week. Release 2 includes technical feasibility exceptions, period data submittals, self-certifications and additional needed enhancements identified in Release 1. It will go live for all regions July 19. Release 3, which covers compliance planning and audits, spot checks and complaints, will go live in the fourth quarter.

Align and the SEL will apply only to new cases, so registered entities should continue to process and submit supporting evidence for existing self-reports using their current tools even after Release 1 takes effect in their regions. If those systems require contact information to be on file, then entities should ensure that is kept up to date as well. New cases using the monitoring methods covered in Release 2 and Release 3 will also be managed in existing systems until those updates go live.

Project Delayed for Security Concerns

NERC began the Align project in 2014 as the CMEP (Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program) Technology Project. The rollout date was set for September 2019 but delayed — initially to the third quarter of 2020 — because of concerns about the software vendor’s sale to SAI Global, an Australia-based company whose investors include Baring Private Equity Asia, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm. (See NERC Investigating Chinese Tie to Software Vendor.)

The SEL was added to the initial release at the request of registered entities, causing the entire project to be delayed again. NERC conceived the SEL as a way to provide secure storage where potentially sensitive information collected as evidence would be kept separate from work papers managed through the Align tool. For security reasons, the SEL is not part of the main Align tool, and REs are allowed to construct their own lockers for CMEP evidence, provided they meet the reliability and security specifications provided by NERC last year.

The delays increased the project’s price tag by more than $2 million and also pushed some development costs originally budgeted for 2019 into 2020, necessitating a budget variance to be filed with FERC last June. (See FERC Approves NERC’s Align Spending Request.) Project leaders acknowledged the cost of the program has been higher than expected but expressed confidence that the results will justify the expense.

“The Align project is the most ambitious undertaking that NERC and the regional entities have ever collectively taken on,” said Jim Albright, chair of NERC’s Align Steering Committee and CEO of Texas RE. “Developing and implementing Align took a significant amount of time and effort from stakeholders across the ERO Enterprise, but I am confident that the effort will pay dividends over the coming years through streamlined CMEP reporting.”