Another set of proposed changes to NERC’s Rules of Procedure is before FERC, after the ERO filed them with the commission Oct. 14 (RR25-1).
The revisions are directed at Appendix 4E of the ROP, which governs the procedures for hearings by the ERO’s Compliance and Certification Committee, appeal hearings, and mediation. NERC has been developing these changes for the past two years, after the CCC first approved revising Appendix 4E at a meeting in April 2022. The ERO’s Board of Trustees approved the revisions at its open meeting in August.
According to the CCC’s charter, “the CCC serves as a hearing body in matters when NERC … directly monitors [power grid] owners, operators and users for compliance with reliability standards.” The committee also serves as a mediator for “disagreements and disputes between NERC and the regional entities concerning NERC performance audits of [REs’] compliance programs,” as directed by NERC’s Board of Trustees, and hears appeals from REs challenging NERC noncompliance findings and related penalties.
Regarding the last point, NERC’s proposed revisions would remove references to REs challenging noncompliance findings, on the basis that there are no longer any REs “complying with NERC reliability standards.” This reflects the elimination of the ERO’s “Regional Reliability Organization” function for registered entities, along with the Reliability Coordinator function that some REs possessed, a spokesperson told ERO Insider.
They also would insert a footnote clarifying that hearings involving the CCC “are likely to be extremely limited” because there are no standards applicable to REs, and that NERC probably never will have to directly monitor compliance by registered entities itself due to lack of an RE in their area.
The next category of revisions relates to the CCC’s procedures for hearing appeals of certification matters. NERC said these changes are intended to maintain consistency with the previous category and other hearing procedures in the ROP, and to update language that has remained unchanged since this passage originally was approved in 2010.
Finally, NERC proposed updating the section of Appendix 4E relating to the CCC’s mediation procedures to “clarify which CCC members are eligible to serve as mediators.” The revisions specify that only committee members who “are disinterested parties,” have not worked in the territory of the RE involved in the dispute and have no other conflicts can serve. In addition, potential mediators would be required to attend a training course.
NERC has been active in revising its ROP in recent years, with FERC approving multiple changes in the past 12 months. First, the commission accepted a set of revisions last November intended to streamline the ERO’s standard development process and allow a faster response to emerging issues by granting NERC’s board the authority to direct the development of a new or revised standard when the board feels it is necessary to maintain grid reliability, bypassing the normal stakeholder comment process. (See FERC Approves NERC Standards Process Changes.)
Additional changes followed in June, with FERC accepting NERC’s proposed revisions that would allow the ERO to register owners and operators of inverter-based resources. The commission also dropped its proposal to require NERC to submit performance assessments every three years, rather than every five years as currently required. (See FERC Accepts NERC ROP Changes, Drops Assessment Proposal.)
