Yana A. Apostolova St. Clair, Esq.
53
The reliability of the electric power
system is of great importance for any
country with developed industry and
infrastructure.
The reliability of the electric power
system needs to be achieved within the framework of the national
and international legal systems.
This is driven to a great extent by
the fact that the electric power systems of many countries are usually
interconnected with their neighboring countries' systems.
The development and enforcement of laws and regulations is
done differently in different countries, but in general follows similar
principles. In North America it is
based on a set of reliability standards developed by the industry
under the leadership of the North
American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a non-profit
corporation which was formed in
2006 as the successor to the North
American Electric Reliability
Council (also known as NERC).
In the context of the bulk power system, NERC defines reliability
as the ability to meet the electricity needs of end-use customers,
even when unexpected equipment
failures or other factors reduce the
amount of available electricity.
NERC breaks down reliability into
adequacy and security.
As a result of the North American blackout in August 2003, the
Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – an
independent governmental agency
that regulates, among other things,
the interstate transmission of electricity, to designate the national
Electric Reliability Organization
(ERO). Such an organization was
considered necessary for the development and enforcement of compliance with mandatory reliability
standards in the United States. On
July 20, 2006 FERC issued an order certifying NERC as the ERO
for the United States.
NERC defines Reliability Standards as "the planning and operating rules that electric utilities
follow to ensure the most reliable
system possible. These standards
are developed by the industry using a balanced, open, fair and inclusive process managed by the
NERC Standards Committee. The
Committee is facilitated by NERC
staff and comprised of representatives from many electric industry
sectors.
Proposed standards are reviewed and approved by the NERC
Board of Trustees, which then
submits the standards to the U.S.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Canadian provincial
regulators for approval. Once approved by these governmental
agencies, the standards become
legally binding on all owners, operators and users of the bulk power
system.
Along with the Regional Reliability Organizations, NERC
has the legal authority to enforce
compliance with NERC Reliability Standards, which it achieves
through a rigorous program of
monitoring, audits and investigations, and the imposition of
financial penalties and other enforcement actions for non-compliance." See http://www.nerc.com/.
In the past NERC was producing non-mandatory guidelines
for power system operation and
accreditation defined as Policies.
Compliance with these policies
was strongly encouraged, but actually voluntary. After becoming
the ERO, during a period of several years, NERC has worked with all
stakeholders to convert its Policies
into mandatory Standards. The
complete set of reliability standards can be downloaded from
NERC's website shown above.
NERC is overseen by FERC and
Canadian governmental authorities and works with eight regional
entities that cover all suppliers of
electric power in the United States,
Canada and a portion of Baja California Norte, Mexico. Non-compliance penalties include fines of
up to 1 million US Dollars per day
per violation, which provides a
very good incentive to all entities
to comply with the standards and
ensure a high level of reliability of
electric power supply.
Disclosure: Please note that none of the information contained within the above column is to be considered legal advice.
PAC.MARCH.2010
System Reliability
Legal Issue
Legal Aspects
of System
Reliability
Biography
Yana is an
American
attorney, licensed
to practice in the
State of California.
She received her
B.A. from UCLA in
2001 with
a major in
Political Science,
specializing in
International
Relations. In 2005
she was awarded
the degree of
Juris Doctor, from
Loyola Law School.
In 2009 she
received her MBA
from Ashford
University.
During her
studies, Yana
worked for Soft
Power Int., where
she became well
acquainted with
the engineering
world. Upon
graduating from
Law School,
Yana joined the
Criminal Defense
field, where she
has devoted her
talents to fight for
her clients.