FERC this week proposed ordering utilities to adopt the latest version of the North American Energy Standards Board’s (NAESB) Standards for Business Practices and Communication Protocols for Public Utilities, soliciting feedback on the plan from stakeholders (RM05-5). 

In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the commission said adopting version 004 of the NAESB standards “would enhance the electric industries’ systems and software security measures and improve efficiencies of certain business processes transactions.” Stakeholders have until 60 days after the NOPR’s publication in the Federal Register to submit their comments. 

NAESB published version 004 on July 31, 2023, after their development by the organization’s Wholesale Electric Quadrant (WEQ), filing them with FERC the same day. Version 004 contains a mix of newly created standards and modifications to existing standards, building on version 003.3, which FERC adopted in 2021. (See NAESB Standards Gain Final FERC Approval.) 

Standards to be modified in version 004 are: 

• • WEQ-000: Abbreviations, acronyms and definition of terms 
  • WEQ-001: Open access same-time information system (OASIS) 
  • WEQ-002: OASIS Standards and Communication Protocol (S&CP) 
  • WEQ-003: OASIS data dictionary 
  • WEQ-004: Coordinate interchange 
  • WEQ-005: Area control error equation special cases 
  • WEQ-006: Manual time error correction 
  • WEQ-008: Transmission loading relief (TLR) – Eastern Interconnection 
  • WEQ-010: Contracts related business practice standards 
  • WEQ-012: Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) 
  • WEQ-013: OASIS implementation guide 
  • WEQ-015: Measurement and verification of wholesale electricity demand response 
  • WEQ-021: Measurement and verification of energy efficiency products 
  • WEQ-022: Electric industry registry 
  • WEQ-023: Modeling 

FERC’s NOPR proposed not to incorporate WEQ-010, a move the commission said is “consistent with our past practice of not incorporating … any optional model contracts and related documents because we do not require the use of these contracts.” 

In addition, FERC said it plans not to include one of the two new sets of standards in the latest version. WEQ-025 (Grid services supporting wholesale electric interactions) aims “to promote greater consistency in wholesale market interactions and communication exchanges by … resources such as distributed energy resources and batteries.” A recommendation from the Department of Energy inspired these standards, joined by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. 

The WEQ-025 standards group operations-based grid services currently used in wholesale markets into six categories: energy grid service, reserve grid service, regulation grid service, frequency response grid service, voltage management grid service and black start grid service. They also lay out which attributes system operators may use to define requirements for services within their wholesale electricity markets, establishing a technology-neutral framework to account for the varying names for similar grid services in various markets. 

FERC said it recognizes the motivation for the grid services standards but said WEQ-025 could create confusion because of the use of terms that are similar to those used in FERC’s pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff. 

The other new standard family, WEQ-024 — which is proposed for adoption — “reorganizes existing NAESB cybersecurity business practice standards” in response to a recommendation from DOE and Sandia National Laboratories. FERC said the consolidation should make it easier for NAESB and the commission to revise cybersecurity standards “to help match the fast pace of changes in cybersecurity practices.”