By Rich Heidorn Jr.

“This may be the quickest meeting we’ve ever had,” NERC Standards Committee Chair Andrew Gallo marveled after gaveling the committee to a close after a lickety-split 33-minute conference call Wednesday.

Team Gets Go Ahead on Standards Retirement Review

Members unanimously voted to authorize the standards drafting team (SDT) that arose from NERC’s 2017 Standards Efficiency Review (SER) to consider the retirements of all or part of more than 30 reliability standards (Project 2018-03).

The SER used a risk-based analysis to identify duplicative, administrative and otherwise unnecessary reliability standards. The SER team submitted a standard authorization request (SAR), which the Standards Committee accepted in August, before appointing the SDT in October.

“The establishment of the standards drafting team started the formal process to modify the standards, which includes finalizing the SAR and balloting the retirements,” NERC spokeswoman Kimberly Mielcarek explained.

In addition to retiring parts of existing standards, the SDT is considering the withdrawal of standard MOD-001-2, which was filed for regulatory approval in February 2014 and is still pending. The SAR says the standard is unnecessary because it concerns flowgates, transfer capability and congestion, “elements that impact transmission costs, rather than actual management of the” bulk electric system.

“Transmission operators, balancing authorities and reliability coordinators must operate the system in such a way that it’s reliable, both for current operations and for contingency conditions, and must remain impervious (according to FERC Standards of Conduct) to cost-related issues,” the SAR said.

Executive Committee Members Elected

Sean Bodkin of Dominion Energy; Linn Oelker of Louisville Gas & Electric; and Steve Rueckert of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council were elected to the SC’s Executive Committee.

Errata OK’d on Canadian Revisions to TPL-007

The committee unanimously approved a correction to the Canadian revisions to TPL-007 (Transmission System Planned Performance for Geomagnetic Disturbance Events) to note that no NERC standards are effective in Canada until approved by a Canadian governmental authority.

Jan. 31 Call Set to Appoint Drafting Team on Inverters

Members agreed to schedule a special call Jan. 31 to discuss and vote on nominees for a SAR drafting team for Reliability Standard PRC-024-2.

Members decided to table the item after declining to waive the five-day notice rule before votes. NERC staff had submitted its recommended nominees after the nomination period closed Jan. 18.

The SAR was prepared by the Inverter-Based Resource Performance Task Force (IRPTF) based on disturbance analyses and the development of the PRC-024-2 Gaps Whitepaper. The IRPTF identified potential modifications to PRC-024-2 to “ensure inverter-based generator owners, operators, developers and equipment manufacturers understand the intent of the standard.” (See NERC to Try Again on Inverter Rules.)

Howard Gugel, NERC senior director of engineering and standards, requested the vote before the Board of Trustees meeting Feb. 6.

Election to Replace Luminant’s Hampton

The committee will accept nominations through Feb. 18 for a replacement for Segment 6 representative Brenda Hampton, who has resigned from Luminant Energy.

Hampton’s replacement will serve for Segment 6 for the remainder of 2019 and 2020. The vote will be taken Feb. 25 to March 6. Hampton is moving to be closer to family, members were told.