Updates

June 20, 2019

NATF, NERC, and EPRI Host Modeling and Planning Workshop

The NATF, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) held a joint workshop focusing on bulk power system (BPS) modeling and planning on June 18-19 in Novi, Michigan.  NATF member ITC Holdings hosted the event, where industry experts discussed the following topics:

  • Modeling and studies of the impacts of distributed energy resources on BPS reliability
  • Modeling and studies of BPS-connected inverter-based resources
  • Electromagnetic transient modeling and studies
  • Node-breaker modeling improvements
  • Cascading analysis techniques and studies
  • Conventional transmission planning study improvements
  • NERC standards updates relevant to transmission planning

Workshop presentation materials are available on the NERC website.

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April 08, 2019

April 2019 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:  

  • NATF Posts Document to Assist Industry with PRC-026-1 Tools
  • NATF and NERC Sign Updated MOU
  • NATF, NERC, and DOE Conduct Joint Human Performance Conference
  • NATF Partners with EPRI and NERC on Resiliency Summit
  • NATF CEO Participates in FERC-DOE Security Technical Conference
  • Workshops and Meetings
  • Redacted Operating Experience Reports

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March 26, 2019

NATF and NERC Sign Updated MOU at Joint Human Performance Conference

North American Transmission Forum (NATF) President and CEO Tom Galloway and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) President and CEO Jim Robb marked the start of this week’s human performance conference and workshops by signing an updated memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two organizations.  The MOU is designed to facilitate collaboration and leverage respective and collective strengths to identify existing and emerging risks, prioritize actions, and implement mitigation strategies to advance the reliability, resilience, and security of the Bulk Power System.   

“The NATF and NERC recognize the importance of efficient and effective coordination and collaboration in this time of unprecedented industry change,” said Galloway. “This MOU will support our shared goals of identifying and addressing risks and advancing reliability, resilience, and security objectives.” 

The conference—a collaborative effort among the NATF, NERC, and the Department of Energy—embodies the goals of the MOU by bringing together industry experts in a cooperative forum to share best practices to help improve human performance on the Bulk Power System. 

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March 12, 2019

NATF Posts Document to Assist Industry with PRC-026-1 Tools

The NATF has posted the “Relay Performance During Stable Power Swings (PRC-026-1) Evaluation Tools Reference Document” to our public website for industry use. 

NERC Reliability Standard PRC-026-1, “Relay Performance During Stable Power Swings,” requires utilities to evaluate the performance of various load-responsive protective relays in response to stable power swings during non-fault conditions.  Impedance-based relays are evaluated against a power swing region defined by the standard.  This evaluation is unlike any analysis currently performed when setting most impedance-based relays.  Thus, new power swing analysis functions are needed within commercial protection system analysis tools, or utilities must develop custom calculators using general-purpose spreadsheets or engineering calculation software.

This document lists functional attributes for either type of tool.  Tool developers may reference this list when developing software requirements specifications.

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January 07, 2019

January 2019 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:

  • TPL-001-4 Reference Document Posted for Industry
  • NATF CEO Testifies on Blackstart at Senate Committee Hearing
  • 2018 External Coordination Highlights
  • Joint Resiliency Summit (NATF, EPRI, and NERC)
  • Redacted Operating Experience Reports

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December 12, 2018

TPL-001-4 Reference Document Posted for Industry

The NATF has posted version 3.0 of the “NATF TPL-001-4 Reference Document” to our public website for the benefit of the industry. 

The document provides guidance regarding the use of consistent, industry-wide approaches to certain topics in NERC standard TPL-001-4.  The goal of sharing this information externally is to support responsible Transmission Planners and Planning Coordinators with the various transmission system planning analyses as called for under TPL-001-4, thus enhancing the reliable planning and operation of the entire Bulk Electric System.

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October 12, 2018

NATF CEO Testifies on Blackstart at Senate Committee Hearing

NATF President and CEO Tom Galloway served on a panel of experts and provided testimony during the October 11 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on blackstart, which involves the process of energizing system components following a widespread blackout without support from the grid, and other system restoration plans.

In his written testimony, Galloway noted the significant industry efforts to preserve high levels of grid reliability and resiliency and improve restoration from broad-scope outages, including educating the industry and regulators on resiliency threats, hardening the bulk power system, ensuring adequacy of key spares, augmenting mutual aid, enhancing restoration planning, conducting comprehensive drills and exercises, and increasing coordination with cross-sector (e.g. gas and water) and governmental entities.

 

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October 02, 2018

October 2018 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:

  • External Modeling Reference Document Posted for Industry
  • Cyber Security Supply Chain Risk Management White Paper and Guidance
  • Redacted Operating Experience Reports
  • New MOU with the Utilities Technology Council
  • NATF CEO Participates in FERC Technical Conference
  • Program Overview: Assistance
  • Program Update: Peer Reviews
  • Workshops and Meetings

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September 27, 2018

New MOU with the Utilities Technology Council

The NATF and the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) recently executed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to leverage their collective knowledge, minimize duplication of effort, and promote collaboration in related efforts to provide timely support to energy owners/operators for the planning, management, and operation of the electric transmission system.  The intended collaboration is expected to help facilitate greater responsiveness to the needs of the industry generally, the NATF and UTC memberships, electric power customers, and the public.

For more information about the UTC, please visit https://utc.org/.

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September 21, 2018

EMS External Modeling Reference Document Posted for Industry

The NATF has posted version 2.0 of the “NATF EMS External Modeling Reference Document” to our public website for the benefit of the industry.

The document provides guidance to those working to improve performance of their energy management system (EMS) external models.  The intended audience for the document is persons with responsibility for development and maintenance of EMS models for real-time state estimator and real-time contingency analysis.

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August 03, 2018

NATF CEO Participates in FERC Technical Conference

NATF President and CEO Tom Galloway served as a panelist during the July 31 FERC technical conference regarding the Bulk-Power System.  Galloway appreciated the opportunity to provide perspectives on resiliency during panel II (“Advancing Reliability and Resilience of the Grid”), which focused on power system planning and operations challenges and opportunities resulting from the changing generating resource mix.

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July 05, 2018

July 2018 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:

  • Emerging Issues and NATF Actions
  • Distributed Energy Resources Document Posted for Industry
  • Inverter-Based Resources Webinars
  • Joint Modeling Workshop
  • Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management White Paper and Guidance
  • Redacted Operating Experience Reports

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June 29, 2018

Cyber Security Supply Chain White Paper and Guidance Posted

The “NATF Supply Chain Risk Management Guidance” and “NATF CIP-013-1 Implementation Guidance” documents have been posted to the NATF public website for industry use.  

The “NATF Supply Chain Risk Management Guidance” white paper describes practices for establishing and implementing a supply chain cyber security risk management plan.  “NATF CIP-013-1 Implementation Guidance” is an associated document that the NATF has submitted to NERC for consideration as Implementation Guidance as an approach to comply with CIP-013.

These documents are geared to benefit members and the industry and respond to the NERC board resolution of August 2017 where it asked for industry assistance via the drafting of white papers.

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June 29, 2018

Distributed Energy Resources Document Posted for Industry

The NATF has posted “NATF Reference Document: Distributed Energy Resource Modeling and Study Practices” to the NATF public website.  

The increasing penetration of distributed energy resources (DER) is producing new challenges for transmission planners.  The reference document provides details to supplement existing documents authored by NERC and others that will help power system planners or study engineers prepare (1) DER models for interconnection-wide power flow cases and dynamic simulations and (2) DER impact assessments on the bulk power system.

Sharing this document with the broader industry will help improve power system modeling and studies being conducted to integrate DER into the Bulk Electric System.

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June 22, 2018

NERC-NATF-EPRI 2018 Power System Modeling Conference

The NATF, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) completed a joint power system modeling conference on June 20-21, 2018.  The conference brought together industry experts to discuss power system modeling and analysis.  Topic areas included:

  • Interconnection-Wide Model Improvements
  • System Model Validation
  • Modeling Distributed Energy Resources
  • Modeling and Performance of BPS-Connected Inverter-Based Resources
  • Electromagnetic Transient Modeling and Studies
  • Geomagnetic Disturbance Modeling
  • Modeling and Experience with Energy Storage Systems
  • State Estimator and RTCA Model Data Quality
  • General Transmission Planning Topics and Emerging Issues

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April 11, 2018

April 2018 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:

  • Redacted Operating Experience Reports
  • NERC Compliance Implementation Guidance Submittals and Endorsement
  • Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management
  • Protection System Misoperations Report
  • External Coordination

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March 30, 2018

March Board and Members Meetings

The NATF held its quarterly board and annual members meetings in March.  Members approved the 2018-2022 NATF Strategic Plan and discussed NATF and industry topics, such as human performance, EMS, grid security and resiliency, CIP supply chain standards, system events and recovery, EMP, corrective action programs, electric-gas coordination, LiDAR, operating experience, and control-center design.

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January 26, 2018

January 2018 Newsletter Posted

The NATF posted a new issue of its external newsletter on the newsletters page.  Articles include:

  • NATF Program Overview: Practices
  • Resiliency Update
  • NATF Members and Staff Participation in GridEx IV
  • Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management
  • New MOU with IEEE PES
  • Workshops

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January 23, 2018

New MOU with IEEE PES

The NATF recently executed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the IEEE Power & Energy Society (IEEE PES).  The NATF and IEEE PES agreed to work together and facilitate interactions on matters of mutual interest pertaining to the electric transmission system.  Both groups seek to more effectively align efforts to address reliability and resiliency challenges due to significant changes in energy supply, demand, and technology.  Cooperation includes but isn’t limited to (1) sharing technical needs and addressing challenges for infrastructure planning, modeling, system operations, and cyber/physical security; (2) identifying existing and emerging technological requirements and needs and approaches for addressing them; and (3) developing, disseminating, and sharing information related to the planning, operations, and maintenance of electric transmission systems and their component parts.

For more information, please see the IEEE PES press release

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December 20, 2017

December Board and Members Meetings

The NATF held its quarterly board and annual members meetings in December.  Members approved a memorandum of understanding with the IEEE PES and discussed NATF and industry topics, such as safety, human performance, CIP supply chain standards, system events and recovery, renewable energy, peer reviews, metrics, operating experience, situational awareness, and equipment.

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