Reliability Issue Report
Cold Weather
R0001
Preparedness
STATUS: In Development
October 23, 2012
v0.2
Section 1 – Key Findings
Reliability Issue
Lack of generator preparedness for cold weather extremes in sub-tropical or near-subtropical climates
may result in forced outages, deratings, and failures to start. During wide-area extreme weather events,
unexpectedly large amounts of generation may be unavailable within a region or sub-region. Failure to
communicate changes in operating status of generation during next-day and real time operations time
periods may result in inaccurate Balancing Authority generation/load forecasts. Insufficient availability
of intra-regional generation and limits on import transfer capability may result in insufficient generation
to serve forecasted load, resulting in load shedding.
Goals and Objectives
Goal: Ensure generators prepare for cold weather extremes.
Objective 1: Identify guidelines and best practices for cold weather preparedness for Generators
Objective 2: Educate generators on these guidelines and best practices.
Success Metrics
Decreasing values in the following areas:
 Frequency of unexpected loss of generation during cold weather events
 % of Generation derates due to cold weather events
 Frequency of generator failures during cold weather events
 Frequency and magnitude of load shedding during cold weather events
Recommended Risk Strategy Implementation
The RISC recommends an approach of education and awareness be used to address this concern:

We recommend the NERC Operating Committee develop a guideline that assists entities in
preparing for cold weather. In order to be useful during the 2012/2013 winter, we suggested to
the OC that this guideline be published to the industry no later than December 3, 2012.



We recommend the OC and NERC staff work together to annually remind entities of the need to
prepare for cold weather. We believe initially this can be done through the use of Webinars and
other approaches. Similarly, in order to be useful during the 2012/2013 winter, we suggested to
the OC that the first of these Webinars occur on or before December 14, 2012.
We recommend NERC develop training programs to educate the industry on the OC Guideline
and cold-weather best practices. We suggest this training should be delivered annually and
commence in Q3, 2013.
We recommend the OC work with NERC and industry to establish a voluntary review process
(possibly in collaboration with the NATF or NAGF), through which entities can verify their
preparedness. We suggest these reviews could occur annually for some representative number
of entities, and commence in Q3, 2013.
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Section 2 – Analysis and Support
The RISC accepts the analysis enclosed within the nomination. With regard to its recommendation, the
RISC believes this particular issue, while important, does not represent a strategic issue to which a
significant amount of NERC resources should be dedicated in a Standard development effort. Further,
given the financial incentives that already exist for generators to perform during cold weather, the
additional reinforcement of a standard imposing financial penalties would likely be ineffective.
Focusing on the root causes of the previous cold weather events, the RISC believes the “cause” of these
events is a lack of retaining institutional knowledge and business practices over time, combined with a
lack of communication of status information between the GO/GOP and the BA and TOP. Accordingly,
the RISC is recommending a strategy focused on removing this loss of knowledge and ensuring the
requirements in the existing body of standards are well understood.
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Section 3 – Results and Ongoing Performance
Status of Recommendations
Specific deliverables to be determined following Board of Trustees endorsement.
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Performance
2012/2013 2013/2014 2014/2015 2015/2016 2016/2017
Frequency of unexpected loss of
generation during cold weather
events
% of Generation derates due to cold
weather events
Frequency of generator failures
during cold weather events
Frequency of load shedding during
cold weather events
Magnitude of load shedding during
cold weather events
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Change History
Version Number Description
0.1
Initial staff draft; Status marked as In Development
0.2
Second draft; status of recommendations specifics removed;
reference to standards review removed; fixed typos
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Date
10/22/2012
10/24/2012
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Attachment 1 – Original Submission
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