Prior to the enactment of section 215 of the Federal Power Act, FERC had acted primarily as an economic regulator of the wholesale power markets and the interstate transmission grid. In this regard, the Commission acted to promote a more reliable electric system by promoting regional coordination and planning of the interstate grid through regional independent system operators (ISOs) and regional transmission organizations (RTOs).
The passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 added to the Commission's efforts, by giving it the authority to strengthen the reliability of the interstate electric transmission grid through the grant of new authority pursuant to section 215 of the Federal Power Act which provides for a system of mandatory Reliability Standards developed by the ERO, established by FERC, and enforced by the ERO and Regional Entities. As part of FERC's efforts to promote electric transmission grid reliability, the Commission created the Office of Electric Reliability (OER) in 2007. OER oversees the development and review of mandatory Reliability Standards. OER also oversees compliance with the approved mandatory standards by users, owners, and operators of the Bulk-Power System, and maintains a situational awareness monitoring tool to provide wide area visibility of the Bulk-Power System.
NERC states the proposed regional Reliability Standard PRC-006-SERC-01 was developed to be consistent with the NERC UFLS Reliability Standard PRC-006-1. Proposed regional Reliability Standard PRC-006-SERC-01 is designed to ensure that automatic UFLS protection schemes designed by planning coordinators and implemented by applicable distribution providers and transmission owners in the SERC Region are coordinated to effectively mitigate the consequences of an underfrequency event. The proposed regional Reliability Standard PRC-006-SERC-01 adds specificity not contained in the NERC UFLS Reliability Standard for UFLS schemes in the SERC Region and effectively mitigates, in conjunction with Reliability Standard PRC-006-1, the consequences of an underfrequency event while accommodating differences in system transmission and distribution topology among SERC planning coordinators resulting from historical design criteria, makeup of load demands, and generation resources.
Under the proposed regional Reliability Standard, the information is used to ensure compliance with requirements associated with underfrequency load shedding plans. Without this information it would be difficult to enforce compliance with the regional standard. A lack of compliance with this regional standard may lead to uncontrolled failure of the Interconnection.
US Code:
16 USC 824o
Name of Law: Energy Policy Act of 2005
As stated in the response to #12 of the supporting statement, this is the first time NERC has requested Commission approval of this regional Reliability Standard. NERC stated in its petition that UFLS requirements had been in place at a continent-wide level and within SERC for many years prior to implementation of the Commission-approved Reliability Standards in 2007. Because the UFLS requirements have been in place prior to the development of PRC-006-SERC-01, the regional Reliability Standard is largely associated with requirements the applicable entities are already following.
$1,588
No
No
No
No
No
Uncollected
Susan Morris 202 502-6803
No
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.