In a short meeting on Thursday, NERC’s Standards Committee agreed to appoint teams to draft standard authorization requests (SAR) for four upcoming standards projects.
Committee members voted to approve the NERC-recommended candidates for chair and vice-chair, along with members for the following:
- Project 2020-02 — Transmission-connected dynamic reactive resources
- Project 2021-04 — Modifications to PRC-002
- Project 2021-06 — Modifications to IRO-010-2 and TOP-003-3
- Project 2021-05 — Modifications to PRC-023
Troy Brumfield, regulatory compliance manager at American Transmission Company, expressed concern about the relatively small team for Project 2020-02; NERC recommended only seven members, including the chair and vice chair. While NERC’s Manager of Standards Development Latrice Harkness reminded members that NERC has had SAR drafting teams with only seven members before, Brumfield, worried about a potential lack of diversity on the team, moved that the committee ask NERC to solicit industry for more nominees before moving ahead with the project.
“Maybe [we], as Standards Committee members and participants, could kind of dig into our companies a little bit and see if there’s any interest because … with five members on this drafting team, I think we might be lacking … what we need in terms of building a well-rounded SAR,” Brumfield said.
Chair Amy Casuscelli persuaded Brumfield to modify his motion to include accepting NERC’s nominees while sending out another solicitation; this compromise passed with no objections.
Charter Revisions Endorsed
Members then agreed to endorse revisions to the Standards Committee’s charter, the current version of which has been in place since 2019. The changes suggested by the committee’s Executive Committee include:
- provisions for the departure of a committee member, other than formal resignation;
- participation by the chair and vice chair in the Standing Committees Coordination Group, a recently formalized conference of heads of NERC’s standing committees;
- training for new members;
- process for filling vacancies in the Executive Committee; and
- process for establishing subcommittees, working groups and task forces that is consistent with the Reliability and Security Committee.
With the endorsement of the committee, NERC staff will submit the revised charter to NERC’s Board of Trustees at its next meeting in November.
Casuscelli, Bennett’s Leadership Extended
Casuscelli, as well as vice chair Todd Bennett of Associated Electric Cooperative, gained the support of members for another two-year term, to begin Jan. 1, 2022, and end on Dec. 31, 2023.
Bennett and Casuscelli were both first elected in 2019 and began their terms the following January. (See NERC Standards Committee Briefs: 9-18-19.) Previously, Casuscelli served as vice chair for the 2018-19 term.
“This is certainly not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also very rewarding, and it’s very educational, and so I appreciate your confidence in me,” Casuscelli said. “I also appreciate Todd very much as my vice chair; he’s been my voice of reason for the last couple of years, and I think we have a great partnership, and I’m happy to see that continue.”
Casuscelli also updated members on the committee’s meeting schedule for next year, including four in-person meetings scheduled in March, June, September and December. The June and December meetings are to be held at NERC’s headquarters in Atlanta, while venues have not been chosen for the other two. Casuscelli said the schedule is “very near final,” though the in-person aspect is more “tentative and fluid at this point.”
