By Rich Heidorn Jr.

WASHINGTON — NERC stakeholders continue to complain of inconsistent oversight between regions and want the Electric Reliability Organization to provide faster and more transparent enforcement, according to the results of the biennial ERO Enterprise Effectiveness Survey.

Ted Hobson, chief compliance officer for Florida cooperative JEA, briefed the Compliance and Certification Committee (CCC) on the results at its March 12 meeting at Edison Electric Institute headquarters. (See related story, NERC Compliance and Certification Committee Briefs.) Hobson, who said the results were not statistically different from the prior survey, focused on the “free form” comments by stakeholders.

Hobson said stakeholders were generally positive about NERC’s risk-based Compliance Monitoring Enforcement Program (CMEP) but that some continue to complain of inconsistencies among Regional Entities.

“The approach and implementation of internal control evaluations seems to vary across regions,” said Hobson, the chair of the CCC’s ERO Monitoring Subcommittee (EROMS). “Our observation there was: Some regions are doing it; they’re doing it fairly well and with some detail. And some regions, frankly, weren’t even implementing it.”

The CCC will recommend that NERC continue its collaboration with the committee’s Alignment Working Group to resolve inconsistencies and expand outreach on alignment issues to small registered entities and trade groups. “We’ve had this since … the very first survey [in 2015], this whole issue of consistency,” Hobson said.

Patti Metro, of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, expressed frustration with what she saw as a disconnect between the comments and NERC’s efforts to improve the alignment among REs.

“I don’t know if it’s because they don’t get the message from the people in their own organization that attend those meetings, because we communicate those things,” she said.

Hobson said the responses indicate a lack of awareness of NERC’s Program Alignment Process, an effort begun in 2017, and the Recommendation Tracking tool.

Confidence, Transparency

Hobson said some stakeholders also expressed a lack of confidence in audit teams, particularly those conducting critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reviews.

“Commenters expressed that CIP auditors were providing their interpretations of the standards, and the implication is they seem to vary across regions,” he said. “The picture we get from the comments is that the [operations and procedures] audits generally are well organized; well formatted; pretty consistent. We know what to expect. The CIP audits, not so much. They vary too much across regions, and even in the same region, different audits.”

One recurrent theme was that REs take too long to approve mitigation plans, confirm their completion and issue fines, particularly for low-risk issues.

Another was a desire for more transparency regarding enforcement activities, with respondents complaining that “not enough details are provided to entities to fully understand their violations,” Hobson said.

There is also frustration that third-party tools such as Open Access Technology International (OATI) and MKInsight audit software “are cumbersome and not easily usable for registered entities, especially during an audit or violation mitigation process,” Hobson said. Utilities use OATI’s webPortal to submit data to NERC.

“People think they’re more gauged to being useful to the region than they are the entities,” he added. “I think that’s true, but I think we are addressing that.”

There also were complaints that the Organization Registration and Certification process places a “high administrative burden” on small entities that is disproportionate to the low risk they pose to the bulk power system, Hobson said.

Hobson also discussed the CMEP technology tool project, an effort begun in 2014 to standardize the business processes of NERC and the REs on a single platform.

“People expect a lot from this new tool. So, we really need to work hard to get it right,” he said. “I think we’re doing that but there’s a lot riding on this.”

The first release of the software is set for September, NERC told the CCC. The organization has begun “conference room pilots” to get initial feedback from regional subject matter experts.

‘Positive’ Tone

After Hobson’s briefing, the CCC approved a motion to communicate the survey results to the Enterprise-wide Risk Committee (EWRC).

Hobson acknowledged his briefing focused on the criticisms surfaced in the survey. “If you actually read the whole report in total, you’ll find that it’s got a positive tone to it. We do recognize the improvements and the good changes that have occurred,” he said. “By definition, comments are going to be on the negative side. People that are happy with things simply don’t answer.”

Ken McIntyre, NERC’s director of regulatory programs, said the criticisms were not new. “A lot of it we’re already working on or aware of,” he said. “None of this is a blind spot for us.”