July 14, 2017

Earlier this year, the North American Transmission Forum (NATF) posted “NATF BES Monitoring and Control—an Overview of Backup Capabilities,” which provides an overview of the key capabilities for the reliable operation of the bulk electric system (BES), along with a description of the various approaches used within the industry to ensure redundancy for critical capabilities so that System Operators are able to continuously monitor and control the BES in the event of the loss of primary control center capabilities. 

As a follow-up to that effort, a team of subject-matter experts from NATF member organizations drafted “Bulk Electric Systems Operations absent Energy Management System and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Capabilities—a Spare Tire Approach” to assess how electric utilities could continue to operate during an event that disables both primary and backup controls systems (e.g., EMS/SCADA) and identify future areas of industry work and research to better enable operations during scenarios where there is a total loss of EMS/SCADA capability.

For the benefit of regulators and the industry at large, the NATF has posted the document to the Documents section of its public website (www.natf.net).