By Sr NERC Reliability Specialist Jack Jackson
The April issue of True Grid highlighted the new quarterly compliance podcast called “Currently Compliant” offered by NERC while this issue will focus on the six Regional Entities’ information sharing and training efforts. Additionally, NAES NERC will be hosting a webinar series August 3-5. The conference theme is Guiding Compliance-Improving Reliability and will provide an opportunity to connect with industry leaders, increase your understanding of current NERC issues, and exchange best practices to support compliance and reliable operations. Presentations will begin each morning at 9AM PST and go through 2PM PST, with breaks intermittently throughout each day. A complete list a presentations and speaker will be sent to registered attendees prior to the conference.
Texas RE’s Reliability 101 is a webinar series designed for stakeholders who are new to the electric reliability industry, reliability standards, or their role. Attendance is open to anyone who wants a refresher on compliance and enforcement basics, NERC and Texas RE history, introductions to various program areas, or how to get involved with Texas RE. The series was initially conducted in face to face meetings but was shifted to a webinar format in 2021 in order to continue the series in the face of in person meeting restrictions.
The 2021 Reliability 101 webinar series will be held from July 13 to August 13. Individual session information and registration is available at the Texas RE website. All events are held from 1:30pm to 2:30pm Central. Archived recordings of events will be available on their training pages under Archived Presentations.
The Texas RE Reliability 101 series schedule is as follows:
| Date | Topic | Presenter |
| Tuesday, Jul 13 | History and Introduction to Texas RE | Derrick Davis, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary |
| Thursday, Jul 15 | Registration and Certification | Abby Fellinger, Manager, Registration & Certification |
| Tuesday, Jul 20 | Standards Development | Rachel Coyne, Manager, Reliability Standards Program |
| Wednesday, Jul 21 | Introduction to Align | Rochelle Brown, Manager, CMEP Coordination & Special Projects |
| Thursday, Jul 22 | Compliance Monitoring | Curtis Crews, Director, Compliance Assessments |
| Tuesday, Jul 27 | Foundations of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) | Kenath Carver, Manager, CIP Compliance Monitoring |
| Thursday, Jul 29 | Foundations of Operations and Planning (O&P) Programs | Curtis Crews, Director, Compliance Assessments |
| Tuesday, Aug 3 | Risk Based Approach to Reliability | Neelima Bezwada, Senior Risk Assessment Engineer |
| Thursday, Aug 5 | Initial Engineering Submissions | Curtis Crews, Director, Compliance Assessments |
| Monday, Aug 9 | Navigating Noncompliance Resolution | AJ Smullen, Assistant Manager, Enforcement |
| Friday, Aug 13 | NERC Data Collection, Event Analysis, and Guidelines | Brad Woods, Senior Reliability Engineer |
In addition to the events previously noted there are numerous training and workshop webinars being hosted by all NERC regions in the upcoming quarter. NAES NERC has compiled a list of events from the Regional Entity websites. If you are interested in a session in a region other than your own, remember events are not restricted to entities located in a specific region.
At the time of posting all events are via webinar and links to the registration pages are provided.
| Region | Event | Date | Time |
| WECC | Compliance Open Webinar | Thursday, Jul 15 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm Pacific |
| RF | Technical Talk with RF | Monday, Jul 19 | 11:00am – 12:30pm Eastern |
| MRO | Consequence Driven Cyber Informed Engineering (CCE) – Resilience Strategies | Tuesday, Jul 20 | 8:00am – 9:00am Central |
| MRO | MRO 2021 Virtual CMEP Conference | Tuesday, Jul 20 | 9:00am – 4:00am Central |
| NAES NERC | Guiding Compliance-Improving Reliability | Tues, Aug 3 – Thurs, Aug 5 | 9:00am – 2:00 pm Pacific |
| RF | Protection System Workshop | Wednesday, Aug 11 | 6:00am – 10:00am Eastern |
| RF | Human Performance Workshop | Thursday, Aug 12 | 6:00am – 10:00am Eastern |
| RF | Technical Talk with RF | Monday, Aug 16 | 11:00am – 12:30pm Eastern |
| MRO | Protective Relay Subgroup | Tuesday, Aug 17 | 8:00am – 4:00pm Central |
| WECC | Compliance Open Webinar | Thursday, Aug 19 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm Pacific |
| MRO | 2021 Reliability Conference | Tuesday, Aug 24 | 9:00am – 3:30pm Central |
| SERC & RF | Cold Weather Preparedness | Tuesday, Aug 24 | 9:00 am – 12:00pm Eastern |
| RF | Internal Controls Webinar | Wednesday, Aug 25 | 10:00am to 2:00pm Eastern |
| TRE | Talk with Texas RE – Assessment of Reliability Performance | Thursday, Aug 26 | 1:30pm – 2:30 pm Central |
| TRE | Winter Weatherization Workshop | Thursday, Sep 2 | 9:00am – 1:00pm Central |
| TRE | Talk with Texas RE | Thursday, Sep 16 | 1:30pm – 2:30 pm Central |
| WECC | Compliance Open Webinar | Thursday, Sep 16 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm Pacific |
| RF | Technical Talk with RF | Monday, Sep 20 | 11:00am – 12:30pm Eastern |
| RF | Reliability and Compliance Workshop – Day 1 | Wednesday, Sep 22 | Agenda & Time Pending |
| RF | Reliability and Compliance Workshop – Day 2 | Thursday, Sep 23 | Agenda & Time Pending |
| SERC | Fall Reliability and Security Seminar – Day 1 | Tuesday, Oct 5 | 12:30pm – 4:30 pm Eastern |
| SERC | Fall Reliability and Security Seminar – Day 2 | Wednesday, Oct 6 | 8:30am – 12:30pm Eastern |
| TRE | Fall Standards and Compliance Workshop | Thursday, Oct 14 | 9:00am – 1:00pm Central |
| WECC | Reliability & Security Webinar | Monday, Oct 25 | Agenda & Time Pending |