NERC's Reliability Assurance Initiative: What Registered Entities Can Do

Abstract

AbstractIn the summer of 2003, a handful of power lines in Ohio tripped after making contact with overgrown trees. Over the next 13 minutes, the electric grid experienced cascading failures that left an estimated 50 million people in the United States and Canada without power. Two years later, Congress added Section 215 to the Federal Power Act, giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) jurisdiction over the reliability of the bulk power system (BPS). Section 215 also directed FERC to designate an Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) to establish and enforce reliability standards with penalties up to a million dollars per day per violation.