News

By John Schmoker, Compliance Testing Services Project Manager HIGHLIGHTS “The 2026 Summer risk profile is marked by rising demand, significant generation growth in many areas, the prospect of challenging hydrological conditions, and the unpredictability of large loads, from both a forecasting and operational perspective. Multiple assessment areas have revised load…

When people hear the word cybersecurity, they often picture stolen data, hacked emails, or someone in a dark room trying to break into a network. Those risks are real, but they do not fully explain what cybersecurity means inside a power plant.  For power generation facilities, cybersecurity is not just…

By Jim Forehand, CMRP Director – Risk and Reliability For years, I watched facilities treat electrical equipment maintenance as a recommended best practice. It was important work, but it was often managed through a patchwork of OEM guidance, site experience, preventive maintenance templates, and accumulated CMMS entries. The 2023 edition…

The next generation of hyperscale data centers is challenging one of the industry’s long-standing assumptions: that the electric grid is the foundation of reliability. In its place, a new operating model is emerging: fully islanded, behind-the-meter microgrids designed to support gigawatt-scale data center campuses without an external grid connection. At…

ISSAQUAH, Washington (May 4, 2026) - NAES Corporation (“NAES”) announced it has agreed to bring aboard turbine vibration matter experts from Industrial Machinery Diagnostics (iMD) LLC, a premier provider of vibration diagnostics and fault-finding services for rotating equipment. The transaction expands the capabilities of NAES Engineered Performance (EP), strengthening its position as a technical leader in vibration diagnostics and rotating equipment reliability.  …

Listen to most public conversations about the energy transition, and you hear a simple question: which technology should win—gas, coal, renewables, or nuclear? The grid we rely on today was built over more than a hundred years of engineering, policy, and market decisions. We can’t just start over. We’re working…

by Leland McMillan, NERC Supervisor Electric reliability is obviously a huge focus for our industry, but how does the US stack up against other grids? The statistics are in and this article from “World Population Review” shows that we have some work to do. The US was ranked 8th and…

By Eddie Aveitia, NERC CIP Reliability Specialist Every open port on a BES Cyber System is a potential entry point for a threat actor. Best practice — and a foundational principle of industrial cyber security — dictates that only the ports and services necessary for operations should be enabled. Everything…

By William White, Sr NERC Reliability Specialist The North American power industry is currently grappling with what the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) describes as an accelerating “reliability crisis.” For the first time in decades, nearly half of the continent faces an elevated or high risk of electricity shortfalls over the…

By Shaun Rohret, Senior NERC Reliability Specialist For over ten years, NERC MOD-026-1 was the main reliability standard used to verify that generator excitation and Volt/Var control dynamic models in planning studies matched actual performance.  It became effective July 1, 2014, following a FERC order issued in March 2014, and…

By Walt Bukowski, NERC Reliability Specialist We know the ongoing conflict in the Middle East is concerning. Our thoughts are that this will impact generation and natural gas availability due to the price of power. Global energy markets are closely connected, and international events can affect wholesale gas and electricity…

By Troy Dahlgren, NERC Reliability Specialist The electric grid is undergoing a fundamental transformation. As inverter-based resources (IBRs) including solar, wind, and battery storage continue to replace conventional synchronous generation, reliability frameworks must evolve to address new operational characteristics. In response, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has introduced…

Many power producers view CIP-003-9 primarily as a compliance deadline. That perspective is too limited. In practice, CIP-003-9 compels plants to assess whether they truly understand and can control their OT environment. The challenge lies not in unclear language, but in the technical discipline required where many sites still depend…

Over the past several years, developers and asset owners have navigated evolving grid reliability standards, and unprecedented equipment lead times. These pressures have altered capital planning conversations and forced organizations to reevaluate risk across the project lifecycle. Still, beneath these highly visible constraints, another shift is accelerating. It is not…

In the world of energy production, safety is often discussed in terms of “lost-time injuries,” “OSHA compliance,” and “Total Recordable Incident Rates.” While these metrics matter, they rarely resonate with the technician on the frontline. Traditionally, safety programs have been “manual-driven”- thick binders of procedures that workers are expected to follow.  However, David Jackson, VP of Safety…

By: Emily Adelman, Corporate Communications Specialist When the forecast turns towards extreme cold and record-breaking snowfall, NAES teams across the country shift into a high-gear culture of preparedness. From the Arctic blasts of New England to the single-digit temperatures of the Texas Panhandle, the NAES approach is defined by Safety and People-First, two of…

Most energy projects don’t stall because the design is flawed; they stall because lenders don’t have enough confidence in the risks, controls, and cash-flow stability. Developers and plant teams naturally lead with technical capability; the types of turbines, how it will be built, and why it will work. Lenders, meanwhile,…

As the world races to expand firm, dispatchable thermal generation to meet the extraordinary electricity requirements of AI and data-center infrastructure, the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Management (EPCm) model has become an attractive and necessary alternative to conventional EPC contracting. EPCm provides owners & developers with control over procurement, competitive…

by Leland McMillan, NERC Supervisor “Load” has emerged as a reliability impact lately, but not the load that you might be thinking of.  Generation Load is often defined as electrical power that a generator can create.  Transmission System Load is energy demand that moves on the transmission system and is…

by Eddie Aveitia, NERC CIP Reliability Specialist The Changing Threat Landscape Artificial intelligence is changing how both attackers and defenders approach cybersecurity at power generation facilities. You don’t need to be an IT expert to understand the basics—and understanding matters is important because these threats can directly impact plant operations,…