The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Reliability Corporation (NERC) have released a comprehensive report that pins the 2011 Southern California blackout on inadequate planning and grid coordination. Last September, millions of people in Southern California, Arizona and Mexico's Baja California were left in darkness after an employee's work on a transmission line at an Arizona substation triggered a massive blackout. The report dives into the causes of this incident, areas effected and the timeline of the system collapse and restoration.
The report’s overall recommendation calls for an improvement of bulk power system operators’ situational awareness through improved communication, data sharing and the use of real-time tools. It lists 27 specific recommendations to that end, each addressing specific findings from the investigating team. The full report can be accessed at http://1.usa.gov/KoSCTy

At its Open Commission Meeting this week, the Federal Communications Commission extended its Part 4 network outage reporting requirements to apply to VoIP services. The FCC’s Report and Order defines outage reporting for interconnected VoIP service, establishes reporting criteria and thresholds and discusses how the reporting process should work, what information should be reported and confidential treatment of the outage reports. The FCC deferred action on a number of questions, including the possibility of setting thresholds for reporting outages of broadband Internet service and measurements for outages of both interconnected VoIP and broadband Internet services based on performance degradation, as opposed to complete service outage.


UTC issued a statement supporting the FCC's decision, explaining that "[a]dopting the extension of these Part 4 outage reporting requirements should promote the reliability of utility communications and the underlying essential electric, gas and water services they provide. Utilities need reliable communications to support the safe, secure and efficient delivery of essential services to the public at large."

Integration of smart grid devices, and other new and emerging technologies reliant on communications to control operations of the device pose a threat to the reliability of the electric grid, according to a new report released by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Providing a 10-year outlook on the North American electric industry, the new '2011 Long Term Reliability Assessment' report released by NERC evaluates key reliability indicators and dives into the impact of regulations and other issues on bulk power system reliability. The key issues discussed in the report were: the decrease in projected generation resources; the growing dependence on natural gas as a primary fuel source of on-peak capacity; the increased demand for integrating and delivering new resources and the subsequent growth of transmission; and the cumulative effect from environmental regulations may reduce reserve margins in ways that could affect bulk power system reliability, depending on the scope and timing of final regulation implementation. Read more »

Source: FERC Press Release dated September 15, 2011

"In a long awaited regulatory action, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took steps to support continued transmission system reliability by proposing revisions to eight critical infrastructure protection (CIP)reliability standards that include a new method of identifying cyber assets that are critical to the nation’s bulk power grid.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) voted to approve the newest version of the CIP standards some time ago, and the industry has been waiting for FERC's decision on whether the standards should be enacted.

If enacted, NERC CIP 4 would present significant changes in the way utilities identify critical assets and the means used to protect them. Utility security professionals should review the draft standards and begin considering changes needed to their procedures to comply with the new methodologies.

The notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) stressed that NERC has not addressed all the modifications directed by the Commission’s Order No. 706, which approved the original CIP standards in January 2008. The NOPR would require NERC to make a filing to fully comply with Order No. 706 by the end of the third quarter of 2012. Comments on the proposed rule (RM11-11) are due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The proposed “Version 4” CIP standards are an interim step, FERC said in directing the electric industry and the North American Electric reliability Corp. (NERC) to continue developing a comprehensive approach to assure the grid can withstand a cyber security incident. NERC is the Commission-certified electric reliability organization responsible for developing and enforcing mandatory reliability standards."