By Holden Mann

The Nominating Subcommittee for NERC’s new Reliability and Security Technical Committee (RSTC) is considering the final group of nominees for the 34-person entity’s first slate of members following the elections of sector representatives.

Nominations to fill 10 at-large seats closed Friday, RSTC Chairman Greg Ford told the Member Representatives Committee’s (MRC) pre-meeting informational conference call last week. The Nominating Subcommittee — composed of Ford, RSTC Vice Chair David Zwergel,  Board of Trustees Vice Chair Janice Case, CEO Jim Robb and MRC Vice Chair Jennifer Sterling — will announce their choices at the next meeting of the board Feb. 6 in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

The at-large members will join representatives chosen from sectors 1-10 and 12. Each sector was allocated two seats last year when NERC approved the creation of the new committee, which will replace the Planning, Operating and Critical Infrastructure Protection committees. Because all but four sectors put forward more than two names, they held elections to narrow the field. (See Elections Underway for New NERC Panel.)

Elected were:

• Sector 1 (Investor-Owned Utility): Greg Stone of Duke Energy (2020-2023) and Kayla Messamore of Evergy (2020-2022)
• Sector 2 (State/Municipal Utility): Brian Irish of Salt River Project (2020-2023) and Art Iler of American Municipal Power (2020-2022)
• Sector 3 (cooperative utilities): Marc Child of Great River Energy (2020-2023) and Ben Engelby of Arizona G&T Cooperatives (2020-2022)
• Sector 4 (Federal/Provincial Utility): Robert Reinmuller of Hydro One (2020-2023) and Edison Elizeh of Bonneville Power (2020-2022)
• Sector 5 (Transmission-Dependent Utility): John Stephens of City Utilities of Springfield (2020-2023) and Carl Turner of Florida Municipal Power Agency (2020-2022)
• Sector 6 (Merchant Electricity Generator): Allen Schriver of NextEra Energy (2020-2023) and Sheranee Nedd of Public Service Enterprise Group (2020-2022)
• Sector 7 (Electricity Marketer): Kyle VanderHelm of Tenaska (2020-2023) and Jodirah Green of ACES Power (2020-2022)
• Sector 8 (Large End-Use Electricity Customer): John P. Hughes of Electricity Consumers Resource Council (2020-2023) and Venona Greaff of Occidental Chemical (2020-2022)
• Sector 9 (Small End-Use Electricity Customer): Darryl Lawrence of the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate (2020-2023) and David Mulcahy of Modern Energy (2020-2022)
• Sector 10 (ISOs/RTO): Wesley Yeomans of NYISO (2020-2023) and Christine Hasha of ERCOT (2020-2022)
• Sector 12 (State Government): Christine Ericson of the Illinois Commerce Commission (2020-2023) and Cezar Panait of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (2020-2022)

The Nominating Subcommittee will consider several factors in choosing at-large members, primarily interconnection diversity, Canadian representation, entity sector and size, and areas of expertise, with the goal of ensuring a well-rounded overall membership.

“We’ve got a matrix that has got all of the attributes of those that were elected, and what we plan to do is look at the different areas such as operations planning or both physical and cybersecurity, where would we like to have a little more expertise,” Ford said.

The RSTC will hold its first meeting March 4 to elect the executive committee. Its initial regular meeting in June will coincide with the final meetings of the retiring committees.

All representatives are set to take their seats at the RSTC’s first regular meeting in June. Half of the initial members will serve two-year terms expiring in 2022, while the rest will serve three-year terms ending in 2023. After the inaugural terms, future members will serve for two years, expiring in alternating years.

[Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct the names of the nominating committee members and the location of the February Board of Trustees meeting.]