Electricity Sub-sector Coordinating Council
Overview
The role of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC’s) Electricity
Sub-Sector Coordinating Council (ESCC) is to foster and facilitate the coordination of sector-wide
policy-related activities and initiatives to improve the reliability and resilience of the Electricity
Sector, including physical and cyber security infrastructure. The ESCC consists of one member
from the NERC Board of Trustees appointed by the board chairman, the NERC CEO, five CEO-level
executives from NERC member organizations, and the chairman of the NERC Critical Infrastructure
Protection Committee.
The key roles of the ESCC are to represent the electricity sub-sector, to build relationships with
government and other critical infrastructure sectors, and to participate in joint initiatives (as part of
the “partnership framework” envisioned by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and Energy
Sector-Specific Plan). Some of these initiatives are information requests, while others require
regular participation on formally established Working Groups. The Electricity Sub-sector receives
many requests from government (the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland
Security) and other critical infrastructure sectors to participate in various initiatives. The ESCC
keeps informed of these efforts, and participates directly when necessary.
Activities
The ESCC provides leadership, oversight and direction on critical infrastructure strategy, and advises the
NERC Board of Trustees by identifying priorities and key initiatives, recommending timelines, and
overseeing progress towards established goals. The ESCC interfaces with government, provides periodic
direction and support to the Joint Steering Group, and produced the Critical Infrastructure Strategic Roadmap
and Coordinated Action Plan (described below).
Critical Infrastructure Strategic Roadmap
The ESCC’s Critical Infrastructure Strategic Roadmap provides advice to the NERC Board of
Trustees regarding how renewed emphasis should be placed by NERC and the industry to address
certain severe-impact risks to electricity reliability by building on the industry’s existing reliability
and resilience capabilities. The Strategic Roadmap identified three priority scenarios for focused
attention:
 Coordinated physical attack;
 Coordinated cyber attack; and
 Geomagnetic disturbance event.
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Coordinated Action Plan
In order to address the recommendations of the High-Impact, Low-Frequency report and the
objectives of the Critical Infrastructure Strategic Roadmap, the chairs and vice chairs of the
technical committees met with NERC staff and jointly prepared a Coordinated Action Plan. The
plan:
 Describes four severe-impact scenarios as proxies to address high-impact, low-frequency
events;
 Proposes specific initiatives to address these scenarios that build on the existing capabilities
of the industry to further enhance reliability, security, resilience, and restoration;
 Provides an action plan for each initiative to develop prevention and mitigation options,
including key deliverables and projected milestones; and
 Proposes how this work should be structured through an organized combination of
industry-led task forces and NERC staff initiatives.
The ESCC also:
 Serves as the Electricity Sector representative to the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure
Security;
 Provides strategic direction to NERC in its role as the operator of the Electricity Sector
Information Sharing and Analysis Center; and
 Provides policy guidance to the U.S. Department of Energy as the government sectorspecific agency under the sector partnership framework as defined by the National
Infrastructure Protection Plan.
Status

Progress made during 2010 included issuing several Alerts and Recommendations,
developing the Strategic Roadmap, and a successful industry ballot on Critical
Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standard 002-4 to establish bright line critical assets
identification criteria.

2011 progress includes a closer partnership with the Department of Energy labs to enhance
intrusion monitoring and detection capabilities on energy management systems, and a
NERC-led cyber security exercise involving a large number of entities.
Impact on the Electricity Sector
The ESCC works to improve the reliability and resiliency of the Electricity Sector through coordinating the
Electricity Sector’s activities with government agencies and other critical infrastructure sectors.
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