Texas power industry stakeholders grilled a member of NERC’s Board of Trustees during the Texas Reliability Entity’s quarterly meetings Tuesday.

Rob Manning, in just his second year on NERC’s board, was a special guest during Texas RE’s Members Representative Committee (MRC) and Board of Directors meetings in Austin, Texas. When conversation during the MRC meeting turned to NERC’s proposed merger of three technical committees, stakeholders took advantage of the opportunity to ensure ERCOT has enough of a voice before the agency. (See NERC Board Hears Debate over Committee Reorg.)

“I think it’s important, because ERCOT is very small. [It] doesn’t have the voting strength they do in the East and West,” said DeAnn Walker, chair of the Texas Public Utility Commission and a Texas RE director. “I’ll make every effort to be louder about it, because I have that capability. Maybe the reason we don’t sound loud to NERC is because we don’t have the problems they do in the East and [Western Electricity Coordinating Council].”

MRC Chair Liz Jones, an attorney for Oncor, said the composition of a working group to create a new Reliability and Security Council is “inherently biased to the East.”

“It’s not an issue to be remedied at an ad hoc committee level,” she said. “It’s an issue to be resolved at the NERC board.”

“Does it have to be written down, or can we agree?” Manning asked.

“It may be the lawyer in me, but words don’t last very long when they’re only spoken,” Jones replied.

Manning said NERC wouldn’t get anything accomplished if it opened the decision-making to “everybody,” but he promised to share Jones’ concerns with the NERC working group.

“Once we come up with a plan and a process, we’ll put it out there for discussion,” he said.

“Everyone thinks they need to help us,” Walker said. “If they want to help us, they can let us be a part of the makeup of it.”

ERCOT spokesperson Leslie Sopko told ERO Insider that the grid operator is represented on several NERC committees. CEO Bill Magness is one of three ISO/RTO members of NERC’s Member Representatives Committee.

“Should changes occur to the existing NERC committee structure, ERCOT Inc., as well as market participants and stakeholders, would like to ensure the ERCOT region continues to be well represented,” Sopko said.

During the afternoon’s board meeting, Chair Fred Day ribbed Manning in announcing his presence as a “special guest.”

“After the MRC meeting, he feels that much more special,” Day said.

“The ERO machine is just the right thing we need to maintain reliability in North America,” Manning said. “It works. It works because of folks like you, keeping the train on the track and working properly.”

Human Error Causes 50% of Misoperations

Curtis Crews, Texas RE’s director of compliance assessments, briefed the board on the July 13 power outage in New York City, saying, “I don’t want anyone in this room to think it couldn’t happen here.”

Pointing to Consolidated Edison’s recent explanation that the outage was caused by a misoperation on the distribution side, Crews said it appears there might not have been a violation of NERC standards. “Misoperation is not necessarily a violation,” he said.

Crews said the three largest causes of NERC misoperations last year were incorrect settings and design errors, relay failures and malfunctions, and communication failures. NERC has reported the same top three causes going back to 2014.

“Things happen out there,” he said, noting human error is responsible for about half of misoperations. “That human out there wiring to the wrong sensor.”

BP’s Ashby to Join Board of Directors

The board’s Nominating Committee said it would nominate former BP America Executive Vice President Crystal Ashby to one of four independent director positions. Ashby, who was last responsible for the company’s government and public affairs, will replace John Coughlin when his term expires at the end of the year.

The committee will also re-nominate Delores Etter to her independent position, effective Jan. 1, 2020. Etter and Ashby’s elections will be held in September.

The directors also approved revisions to the MRC election procedures for the Cooperative, Load Serving and Marketing, and Transmission and Distribution sectors, mirroring changes made by the Generation sector earlier this year. The changes address situations where there is a single vacancy for a sector’s primary representative to the MRC and remove language requiring a quorum during each round of balloting.

Pat Wood to Highlight Annual Meeting

Former FERC Chairman Pat Wood III will be the guest speaker at Texas RE’s annual membership meeting, to be held Dec. 11 at the organization’s conference center.

Wood also chaired the Texas PUC for six years. He has his own energy infrastructure development company, Wood3 Resources, and serves on three corporate boards: Dynegy, SunPower and Quanta Services.

Texas RE Hosts Japanese Professional

Kenta Takahashi, an associate director in the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Space Industry Office, joined Manning as a special guest during Tuesday’s meetings. Takahashi is part of the Global Government-to-Government Partnership, a professional exchange program administered by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with Meridian International Center.

— Tom Kleckner