Role of NERC and Engineering Standards in Grid's Reliability

• Author: Craig M. Pease
• Position: Ph.D. scientist and former law school professor based in New England
• Pages: 17-17

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 | 17

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, January/February 2022.

Copyright © 2022, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Science and the Law

ELECTRICITY denes everyday

life in the United States. Our

power grid is a huge achieve-

ment of engineering, technology,

and infrastructure. In this country, we

just assume electricity will be available

anytime and practically everywhere

— and overwhelmingly, it is.

is reliability of the electric grid

does not arise spontaneously. It must be

engineered. Over 3,000 diverse institu-

tions compose the U.S. grid, includ-

ing those that generate, transmit, and

distribute power, and those with over-

arching regulatory and coordination re-

sponsibilities. ese include for-prot

public corporations, municipal utilities,

cooperatives, federal power agencies,

federal regulatory agencies, state regu-

latory agencies, non-prots respon-

sible for reliability, and

professional societies.

Grid reliability emerg-

es from all this institu-

tional and technologi-

cal complexity, and is

a commons.

Pursuant to the

Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Fed-

eral Energy Regulatory Commission

has considerable authority over electric

grid reliability, which it has delegated

in considerable part to the non-prot

North American Electric Reliability

Corporation, or NERC. It in turn relies

on, among others, Regional Reliabil-

ity Organizations, and the Institute of

Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a

professional society.

NERC is a deeply technological in-

stitution. As an example of a tiny sliver

of its purview and approach, consider

its recently released report “Joint Re-

view of Protection System Commis-

sioning Programs.” NERC estimates

that 18 to 36 percent of “misopera-

tions” (within the rather narrow scope

of that report) were due to issues that

could have been caught in testing, be-

fore components were placed in service.

In turn, it relies on IEEE WG I-25, a

reference document containing a num-

ber of best practices, esoterically titled

“Commissioning Testing of Protection

Systems.”

From its very pores, this IEEE docu-

ment seethes integrity. In its overview,

we nd a prominent list of six major

attributes of the engineering system

the institute seeks. ey are, in rank

order: safety, training and experience of

professional personnel, and three other

human factors, with the sole engineer-

ing issue, bulk electric system integrity,

listed dead last. ese folks know how

troubles arise in complex engineering

systems. ey focus on people.

At the broadest level, I crudely divide

“the law” into means to resolve conicts

(e.g., litigation and mediation), versus

means to promote cooperation (e.g.,

creating and managing

institutions, norms of

behavior, and formal

standards). Electric

grid reliability must

necessarily be ground-

ed in cooperation,

trust, and human and

engineering integrity, for a couple rea-

sons.

First, technical aspects of grid reli-

ability are a galaxy beyond the ken of es-

sentially all attorneys and policymakers,

and indeed of any scientist or engineer

without deep subject matter expertise.

is IEEE reference document, for ex-

ample, refers to a bewildering array of

technical concepts, including electric-

ity schematics, relay diagrams, phasing,

and loading of circuits. Even when the

law allows it, litigation is a wholly un-

suitable way to challenge, amend, or

alter an engineering standard, or indeed

any highly technical subject matter.

Second, in a complex system such as

the electric grid, any conict or litiga-

tion will have unwanted reverberations,

just as a storm in one state can cause

power outages hundreds of miles away.

e grid exists because it is intercon-

nected — hence it must be grounded

in cooperative behavior. More gener-

ally, IEEE and other professional engi-

neering society standards promote co-

operation and integration, not just for

the grid, but throughout our intercon-

nected economy. Continuing disputes

and ghting would not allow us to reap

the benets of integration.

Alas, there are bad actors. Consider

Pacic Gas and Electric Company, con-

victed in 2016 of violations of the Nat-

ural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968,

and for obstructing a National Trans-

portation Safety Board investigation.

Later, it pleaded guilty to 84 counts of

involuntary manslaughter in the 2018

re that quite literally burned Paradise

to the ground. It is now once again un-

der criminal indictment, for a 2020 re

in Shasta County, California.

It is fortunate that the great institu-

tional cultures of NERC and the IEEE

are not easily changed. Yet it is equally

unfortunate that PG&E’s institutional

culture seems impervious to change.

When I see an eort to reform a bad

institutional culture, I am reminded

of Mark Twain’s words in Huck Finn,

“He reckoned a body could reform the

ole man with a shot-gun maybe, but he

didn’t know no other way.”

Humans being humans, mistakes

are inevitable. As the technical subject

matter becomes ever more daunting,

and the engineering systems ever more

complex, we must trust that institu-

tions and individuals will operate with

the highest levels of integrity. Unfortu-

nately there are serious limits to inde-

pendent verication and oversight.

Role of NERC and Engineering

Standards in Grid’s Reliability

We must trust that

institutions will

operate with

high integrity

Craig M. Pease is a Ph. D. scien-

tist and former law school professor

based in New Eng land. Email him at:

pease.craig@ gmail.com.