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FINDING THE ECONOMIC OPTIMUM IN POWER PLANT O&M
WHY THE LOWEST O&M BUDGET IS RARELY THE MOST PROFITABLE By: Robert Wolfe, Director of Asset Optimization, NAES Executive Summary. O&M budgets should be evaluated by the operating margin they enable, not by cost adherence alone. The optimal investment level...
Who’s Responsible for Cybersecurity?
by Blake Marek, NERC Reliability Specialist The major belief is the IT Department is solely responsible for cybersecurity. While the IT Department does play a big part in securing the networks and end devices, every...
NEW Standard Authorization Request for PRC-024
By Allegra Jones, NERC Reliability Specialist NERC has decided to revamp the way compliance is achieved for PRC-024. The current PRC-024 standard, titled Frequency and Voltage Protection Settings for Generating Resources, is set to transition to...
Two New NERC Quick Reference Guides
By Rob O’Connell, NERC Reliability Specialist The North American grid is undergoing a rapid transformation to its resource mix, adding increasing amounts of renewable generation — wind, solar, battery storage and hybrid plants. While these...
It’s ALIGNed! The New Audit process through NERC’s handy tool
By Michael Tate, NERC Reliability Specialist The implementation of the ALIGN tool has been long journey so far. Release 1 gave us the ability to submit self-reports and mitigation tracking while release 2 & 3...
Proposed Standard: Extreme Cold Weather (EOP-012-1) – Potential Impacts and Standard Development
By Jack Jackson, Senior NERC Reliability Specialist Preparations for cold weather has been a hot topic for roughly the last 10 years specifically impacting generating facilities. Each event has resulted in increased measures to prevent...
WECC Generator Operator Working Group
by Curtis Holland, WECC Staff Reliability Specialist As the Bulk Electric System continues to be impacted by extreme weather events and environmental changes, many regulatory agencies are taking action to establish procedures to address these...
Passwords: A Necessary Evil
by Rob O’Connor, NERC Reliability Specialist Passwords are a necessary part of conducting our business in a secure fashion. But bad habits and shortcuts make it all too easy for bad actors to compromise security...
PRC-019-2 Revalidation Lessons Learned
by Richard Schlottmann, Senior NERC Reliability Specialist Well, it’s that time again! PRC-019 re-validation is underway or has been completed for most folks and there are some interesting things coming to light. It seems there...
Natural Gas and Electrical Operation Coordination: What Can Generators do?
by Wanda Niemann-Marshall, Power Market Compliance Services Specialist In February of 2022 NERC released their 2021 annual report. One area of particular interest to our industry found in the report is the “Reliability Guideline –...
