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On October 26, 2010, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) released a Special Assessment, “Potential Resource Adequacy Impacts of U.S. Environmental Regulations” (the “Assessment”), which examines the impact of four potential Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) rules and proposed rules which could result in generating unit retirements or forced retrofits between 2013 and 2018. 

On October 21, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) conditionally approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) 2011 business plan and budget (“2011 Budget”), as well as the 2011 business plan and budget for the Regional Entities and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Board (“WIRAB”). 

On October 13, 2010, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) issued an industry AURORA alert making recommendations to entities and requiring entities to report on progress made by December 13, 2010.  The entities will then have to make updates to NERC every six months until the mitigation is completed to address any vulnerabilities.  The new alert divided recommended mitigation elements into two categories: 1) Protection and Control Engineering, and 2) Electronic and Physical Security Mitigation Measures.

On October 7, 2010, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) issued an industry alert asking for transmission facility owners to create a plan to review their facility ratings and report that plan back to NERC by December 15, 2010. NERC identified possible discrepancies between actual field conditions and the design of those conditions, and since there are over 450,000 miles of transmission lines greater than 100 kv, the situation requires immediate actions to mitigate any potential risks.

On June 2, 2010, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) published their report entitled “High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System” (“HILF report”).  The report highlights risks that could have disastrous impact on the bulk power system, such as acts of war, terrorism, and coordinated criminal activity, but which are either rare or have never occurred. 

On May 20, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (“FERC” or the “Commission”) Staff presented the “Summer 2010 Energy Market and Reliability Assessment” report. The assessment relied on data from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) assessment of demand and capacity forecasts and data from several reliability regions. 

On March 26, 2010, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (“WECC”) Board of Directors approved their strategic plan for 2010-2012.  The plan announced four strategies and seventeen corresponding action priorities WECC will use to achieve their objectives in the upcoming years.

On March 18, 2010, FERC approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) plan to implement eight Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards, CIP-002-1 through CIP-009-1 (“CIP Standards”) by generator owners and operators of nuclear power plants in the United States (“Implementation Plan”).  NERC’s Implementation Plan was filed on January 19, 2010 as part of a compliance filing in response to FERC’s request for additional information on December 17, 2009.