NERC’s Standards Committee is on track to post a revised cold weather standard for formal comment slightly ahead of schedule Jan. 27, the ERO’s director of standards development, Jamie Calderon, said during the group’s monthly conference call. 

The Board of Trustees directed the committee to develop a revision to EOP-012-2 (Extreme cold weather preparedness and operations) at a special meeting Jan. 10, invoking Section 321 of NERC’s Rules of Procedure to bypass the ERO’s normal stakeholder approval process for the second time. The revised standard must be submitted to FERC by March 27, according to a deadline set by the commission last year. (See NERC Board Invokes Section 321 Authority for Cold Weather Standard.) 

Committee Chair Todd Bennett, of Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., told attendees that a small group of volunteers from the SC, industry and NERC staff has been working on the new standard since the board’s decision. Under the rules invoked by the board, the SC itself must work with stakeholders and NERC staff to prepare a standard that satisfies FERC’s order and post it for a 45-day public comment period no later than Jan. 29. 

Calderon said the drafting team is finished with its revisions; at this point, the standard is undergoing a final legal and administrative review. She emphasized that NERC is “committed to reviewing all comments” received during the comment period, which will end around March 13. After the comments have been reviewed, the board plans to hold a special call to review the standard and any comments that the team considers relevant before FERC’s deadline. 

In response to a question from Sean Bodkin of Dominion Energy, Calderon confirmed that NERC will not be holding another formal ballot for the standard. The ERO has already held two formal ballot rounds for EOP-012-3, but each time the standard failed to receive more than a 45% segment-weighted favorable vote — far below the two-thirds majority needed for approval. 

Trustee Sue Kelly, the board’s liaison to the SC, praised the team for taking their time to work on the standard. 

“I was reminded of Shakespeare’s [quote] … ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ — and sisters — who spent all the time working on this together,” Kelly said. “And we on the board just wanted to say thank you very much for all your efforts.” 

GO/GOP Definitions Project Approved

The only standards action taken by the committee on the conference call, other than the update on the cold weather standard, was to approve a proposal to authorize drafting new definitions for generator owners and operators. 

The proposal was in a standard authorization request (SAR) submitted by the team for Project 2024-01 (Rules of Procedure Definitions Alignment — Generator owner and generator operator). NERC Manager of Standards Development Alison Oswald explained that the projected is intended “to align the NERC Glossary of Terms’ definitions for [GO] and [GOP] with those that are contained in the Rules of Procedure registry criteria.”  

Oswald explained that the SAR has already been posted for a 45-day formal comment period and received “supportive” comments from industry stakeholders. SC members unanimously approved the SAR, which will now be assigned to the Project 2024-01 team.