MIAMI — Addressing NERC’s Member Representatives Committee and Board of Trustees, CEO Jim Robb said “the recent kerfuffle” over trade tariffs between the U.S. and Canada should not affect the ERO’s ability to work on electric reliability issues on both sides of the border.

Robb acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on trade with Canada have created “turbulent waters” between the two countries since the board’s last meeting, as did outgoing Chair Ken DeFontes in his opening remarks. Trump announced a 10% tariff on energy imports from Canada on Feb. 1, only to pause its implementation for 30 days Feb. 3 after promises from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau regarding drug interdiction and immigration.

Derek Olmstead, CEO of Alberta’s Market Surveillance Administrator and representative of Canada’s Energy and Utility Regulators, observed that while the proposed tariffs could lead to difficulty with supply chains, that did not erase the fact that the countries “have common interests that are very much aligned.”

Robb agreed, calling NERC “a great model of international collaboration.”

NERC holds one of its four board meetings in Canada each year; the upcoming August meeting is planned for Calgary, Alberta.

Keenan Steps up to Board Chair

Several of NERC’s leadership positions changed hands at the board meeting. Most notably, DeFontes handed over leadership of the board to Suzanne Keenan, who was elected to succeed him in February 2024. (See NERC Board of Trustees/MRC Briefs: Feb. 14-15, 2024.)

Trustee George Hawkins has stepped up to take Keenan’s place as vice chair, a position he previously held until Keenan replaced him in that role last February.

DeFontes will remain with NERC as a trustee, having been reelected to another three-year term at the meeting of the MRC that preceded the board meeting.

Trustees Jane Allen and Colleen Sidford also will return for a new term; however, the seat left by departing Trustee Bob Clarke — who is not eligible for renomination because he already has served for 12 years — will remain vacant. Larry Irving, chair of NERC’s Nominating Committee, explained the group elected to defer the search for a new trustee to allow more time to find the best candidate to handle “the current speed of change” in the grid and the technology, security and policy landscape.

MRC Chair Jennifer Flandermeyer also handed off her position to Vice Chair John Haarlow, CEO of Snohomish County Public Utility District. Matt Fischesser of ACES Power will take over as vice chair.

The board passed resolutions honoring both DeFontes and Clarke for their service to the ERO, along with Stan Hoptroff, who is retiring after 10 years as NERC’s vice president of business technology. Hoptroff announced his retirement last year along with Manny Cancel, CEO of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center; Robb told attendees that Cancel has agreed to defer his retirement until a suitable replacement is found.

Task Force to Examine Standards Process

Having twice exercised their authority to accelerate standards development in order to avoid a pressing deadline, trustees voted at the meeting to take the first steps toward updating NERC’s standards development process.

The board voted unanimously to create the Modernize Standard Processes and Procedures Task Force, originally suggested at the MRC’s November meeting. Greg Ford, CEO of Georgia System Operations Corp., will serve as chair and Todd Lucas of Southern Co. will serve as vice chair. Trustees Sue Kelly and Rob Manning will join as well, with ERO staff, NERC committee chairs, industry representatives and subject matter experts filling the remaining seats.

The task force will conduct a strategic review of the development process and submit recommendations in 12 months for “a modernized standard development process that … ensures that time [from] risk identification and prioritization to reliability standards development can be completed [in] a much more efficient and effective manner.”

NERC Chief Engineer Mark Lauby told trustees the effort is intended to make the standards process more responsive to the growing pace of change in the risk environment, which has made it increasingly difficult for NERC’s consensus-based approach to keep up with new threats to grid reliability.

This challenge was put on display twice since August, as the board was forced to invoke Section 321 of NERC’s Rules of Procedure when the normal process looked unlikely to result in a suitable standard to meet deadlines set by FERC. Trustees turned to Section 321 first in August to break an impasse over ride-through requirements for inverter-based resources, and again in January to authorize the Standards Committee to take over development of a cold-weather standard. (See NERC Board Invokes Section 321 Authority for Cold Weather Standard.)

Keenan urged Ford and Lucas to look at every aspect of the standards development process to find any opportunities for improvement but also reminded them that “the process needs to remain stakeholder-based, with reasonable notice, opportunity for public comment, due process [and] openness.”

Soo Jin Kim, NERC’s vice president of engineering and standards, also provided an update for the board on the status of Project 2024-03 (Revisions to EOP-012-2), the subject of the second use of Section 321. Kim told trustees the Standards Committee has posted the proposed cold weather standard, EOP-012-3 (Extreme cold weather preparedness and operations), for a public comment period that will end March 12.

When the comment period has concluded, the committee will submit the standard to the board along with a complete record of its development, including comments. A special board meeting to vote on the standard has been scheduled for March 25, Kim said.