NERCand

ESISACElectricity Sector

Information Sharing and Analysis Center

Update

March 2006

CIPC Confidentiality: Public Release

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Topics

● Self Regulating Organization

● NERC Organization

● Bulk Electric System Situational Awareness

● Communications

● Communications – Electric Power Interdependencies

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Self Regulating Organization – 1

● Concept for the Electric Reliability Organization Self regulating Audited by FERC and Canadian Authorities

● Standards, compliance, enforcement● Stakeholder relationships● Technical excellence● Continuous reliability improvement● Performance monitoring

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Self Regulating Organization – 2

● ERO application filing to FERC and Canadian Authorities: 04 April 2006

● Conditional acceptance: date tbd

● Formal ERO: January 2007

● There are currently 104 Standards

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NERC Organization - 1

● Programmatic Standards Compliance and Organization Certification Reliability Readiness Education and Operator Certification Reliability Assessment and Performance Analysis Situational Awareness and Infrastructure Security

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NERC Organization - 2

● Functions Members’ Forums Information Technology Legal and Regulatory Human Resources Finances and Accounting

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NERC Organization - 3

● Focus on programs; committees support programs

● Technical expertise of industry; industry sets the rules

● Committees and Forums are portals Stakeholders ERO● Program committees: SAC, CCC, CIPC, +● General committees: OC, PC● Alignment of committees with programs is a task

ahead

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Situational Awareness – 1● OF: Bulk Electric System (BES)● BY: Operators, Government, ESISAC● FOR: An event of any causation that is

o Expectedo Occurringo Under restorationo Under study

● TO: Help facilitate fast, appropriate actions by each entity as

called for by its roles(Note: This does not directly involve the

operational analysis currently performed by operations.)

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Situational Awareness – 2

● Frequency and ACE monitoring and alarms● Reports: RCIS, CIPIS, telephone, email● CNN

● EPACT 2005, Section 1839: Proposed Transmission Monitoring System DOE – FERC – NERC Phasor Measurement Unit project North America Electric Infrastructure SECurity

(NESEC) System and NESEC +

Composite RC TEMPLATE with some grouping and combination (Sub-regions of RC)

ALERT LEVEL

TRIGGERING EVENT EXAMPLES OF TRIGGERS RC’S MAY USE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 DHS Color

RED Supply Impact Major loss of load Uncontrolled loss of load on bulk transm. System Underfreq. & undervoltage load shedding Major loss of equip. Known attacks in progress ORANGE System Emergency Load / Capacity Emergency EEA 2 EEA 3 Public appeal, volt reduction, etc. as individual actions Purchasing emerg. Energy Primary reserve objective not met Manual load shedding or firm load reduction Zero reserves Reactive Emergency Loss of reactive reserve Transmission Emergency Islanding or transmission loop opening Sustained outage of dc intertie Irl violation in process of tlr lv 6 Multiple outages of gen. &/or transm. Fuel Emergency Fuel shortage Cyber Emergency Prolonged loss of ems / observability Security Emergency Attacks – several YELLOW Stressed System Load / Capacity EEA 1 Reserve objective not met Severe weather – cold or hot Interruptible load implemented Public appeal Reactive Lost reactive reserve Transmission Irl violation in process of tlr lv 1-5 Severe storm Geomagnetic storm Major fires Dc intertie loss – brief Series of events (ES equip. failures) Unsolvable congestion Fuel Fuel reserves below target Cyber Loss of primary control center Loss of major ems functions greater than 60 mins. Loss of alarm functions greater than 30 mins. Loss of control function Loss of wide area observability – sustained Security Bomb threat at major facility General threats Specific threats or suspected attack Wide spread sabotage – w/o loss of load GREEN Non-alert Status Absence of checked events

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Communications – 1● Cyber Storm

Exercise in brief: objectives, participants (anonymized), actions

Lessons learned Refer to agenda materials Communications must be focused to recipients and

succinct, avoiding repetition while assuring requisite information dissemination

“Push” alerts and communications Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN)

(and mdl) Electricity Sector Threat Alert Levels (Physical and

Cyber) change process needs review

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Communications – 2

● Requests For Information (RFI) Use ESISAC as point of contact; minimize

operator burdens Formalize (e.g. for hurricanes); use HSIN

● Communications between IC and CI (NIAC study group)

● Use established relationships (at least organizationally)

● Provide sector subject matter expertise

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Communications – 3

● Critical infrastructure Warning Information Network (CWIN) Status, train, test, use

● US-CERT ES Portal

● ISERnet: DOE Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration

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Telecommunications – Electric Power Interdependencies

● National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) task force

● Near-term report: emergency responders, fuel supplies, emergency coordination, information sharing

● Long-term report: detail consideration of impacts of a long-term outage, dependencies, inter-dependencies

● Electricity Sector dependence on communications providers: study, who?

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