Members of NERC’s Standards Committee dealt with multiple action items in what Chair Todd Bennett, of Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., called a “healthy agenda,” despite agreeing to delay action on one item until its next meeting in January.

In the Dec. 9 teleconference, Bennett told the SC he was “proud of what this committee has been able to accomplish over the past year,” reminding members that more than 50 outstanding FERC directives were being resolved through the standards development process as of mid-2025. Trustee Sue Kelly, the committee’s liaison to NERC’s Board of Trustees, echoed Bennett’s remarks, praising the SC, along with NERC’s standards development staff, for working hard “to shovel the work out the door and yet maintain high quality.”

The action items for the committee’s final meeting of the year were relatively simple and approved with little debate, with the exception of a proposal to add four members to the standard drafting team for Project 2022-05 (Modifications to CIP-008 reporting threshold).

The SC authorized soliciting nominees from industry to replace four departing members of the project team at its Aug. 20 meeting, receiving 10 nominations. (See NERC Standards Committee Tackles Final Order 901 Tranche.) NERC staff recommended four of these candidates to join the team.

However, during the meeting, several SC members expressed confusion that the background material they were given about at least two of the candidates — who were not identified by name, in accordance with NERC’s policies — did not match their oral description by Alison Oswald, a manager of standards development. Oswald examined the material and determined that NERC staff had copied the wrong information into the file.

Rather than try to sort out the confusion during the meeting, Oswald suggested removing the item from the meeting’s agenda and returning to it at the committee’s January meeting. Asked by Terri Pyle of Oklahoma Gas and Electric how this decision would impact NERC’s standards development schedule, Oswald said the project was low priority and delaying action would only cause the new members to miss one SDT meeting. After Bennett endorsed the proposal, the rest of the committee agreed to delay action.

The next item similarly concerned appointing the chair, vice chair and eight other members to the SDT for Project 2025-06 (Supply chain risk management). This project is intended to address FERC’s September order directing NERC to develop standards addressing registered entities’ SCRM plans within 18 months. (See FERC Tackles Cybersecurity in Multiple Orders.)

NERC received 14 nominations in the 14-day solicitation period, Manager of Standards Development Sandhya Madan said, and it recommended 10 for SDT membership. Committee members approved all members without objection.

Members then turned to a proposal to authorize drafting new reliability standards for Project 2021-03 (CIP-002), a necessary step to moving forward with a standards development project. The committee again approved the proposal without opposition, along with subsequent authorizations of standards development for Project 2025-03 (Order No. 901 operational studies) and Project 2025-04 (Order No. 901 planning studies).

The latter two projects address the final milestone of FERC Order 901, covering operational and planning studies for inverter-based resources. Members also approved a proposal to reassign two standards authorization requests to update TPL-001-5.1 (Transmission system planning performance requirements) from Project 2022-02 (Uniform modeling framework for IBR) to Project 2025-04.

Aside from the action items, Oswald also shared with members a planned change to NERC’s SDT reference manual that would allow staff to remove team members for lack of attendance at meetings. The new language would specify that if a team member missed three consecutive meetings without notifying staff, the developer assigned to the project would reach out to the member to see if they would like to continue to serve.

If no response was received and the member missed two additional meetings, the developer would email asking again if they wished to continue serving. Continued lack of response after an additional three weeks would cause the member to be reassigned as an observer. The changes would take effect in 2026, Oswald said.