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Power Plant Cybersecurity Is a Physical Reliability Issue
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...
NFPA 70B IS NOW A STANDARD. ELECTRICAL MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS NEED TO CATCH UP
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…
FIVE NINES WITHOUT A GRID: RETHINKING MICROGRID TESTING FOR GW-SCALE DATA CENTERS
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…
NAES Acquires Industrial Machinery Diagnostics (iMD) Turbine Vibration Subject Matter Experts
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. …
Operating the Energy Transition: Gas, Coal, Renewables, and Nuclear All Have a Job to Do
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…
World Rankings on Reliability
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…
The Hidden Risk of Open and Unused Ports on BES Cyber Systems
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…
The Accelerating Reliability Crisis
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…
MOD-026-1 vs. MOD-026-2: A Clearer, Broader Standard—and the Retirement of MOD-027-1
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…
What the Situation in the Middle East Means for Our Energy and Generation
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…
A New Era of Inverter-Based Resource Compliance:Understanding NERC PRC-028, PRC-029, and PRC-030
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…
CIP-003-9 Is Not Just a Compliance Update. It Is a Visibility Problem
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…
The Labor Shift in Power Generation: Are You Prepared?
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…
Protect Your Four: How Personal Values Drive Industrial Safety Excellence
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…
The Grit Behind the Grid: How NAES Sites Defied a Historic Winter
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…
Independent Engineering: Turning Power Plant Plans into Bankable Projects
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,…
EPCm Project Delivery: A Critical Solution for The Thermal Power Build-out in The AI Era
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…
Large Loads Looming Concern
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…
AI in Power Plant Cybersecurity: What You Need to Know
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,…
How Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Impact the Electrical Grid
By Richard Schlottmann, NERC Project Manager Introduction Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are emerging as a pivotal technology in the evolution of the electrical grid, offering a blend of flexibility, reliability, and resilience that addresses many of the challenges facing modern power systems. As the energy sector accelerates its transition toward…
Section 1600 Reporting
By Stefano Schnitger, Senior NERC Reliability Specialist The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Section 1600 reporting framework authorizes targeted data requests from registered entities to support reliability oversight under Section 215 of the Federal Power Act. This framework ensures NERC and Regional Entities have accurate, timely data for reliability…
