Updates
June 24, 2016
June Board and Members Meetings
The NATF held its quarterly board and members meetings in June. Members approved the NATF’s 2016-2020 Long-Range Operational Plan and discussed a range of industry topics, including operating experience, operational testing, cyber security, physical security, metrics, safety, misoperations, resiliency, and transformers.
May 23, 2016
Joint Compliance-Security Workshop
The NATF held a joint compliance and security workshop in May. Topics included self assessments, CMEP implementation, tracking and mapping internal controls, CIP audit and compliance monitoring experience, risk and controls identification, low-impact devices, security desk concepts.
May 20, 2016
May Member Newsletter
The NATF’s May newsletter has been posted to the member site. Article topics include operating experience lessons and analysis, cyber security, GMD, information technology, trends and themes, peer reviews, and metrics.
May 15, 2016
Transmission-Nuclear Power Plant Interface Workshop
The NATF’s Transmission-Nuclear Power Plant Interface Practice Group held a workshop in May. Representatives from transmission and nuclear power plant organizations attended to kick off the development of a practice for assessing and communicating the risk of switchyard activities.
May 10, 2016
Human Performance and Operating Experience Symposium
The NATF held its 2016 Human Performance and Operating Experience Symposium in early May. Topics focused on starting, sustaining, and improving human performance and operating experience programs; tying human performance and operating experience together; event analysis and corrective actions; and tools to share operating experience internally.
March 31, 2016
March Board and Members Meetings
The NATF held its quarterly board and members meetings in March. Members approved the NATF’s 2016-2020 Strategic Plan and ratified one new member. Discussion topics included operating experience, human performance, GMD, gas-electric coordination, switching, resiliency, internal controls, and asset management.
March 20, 2016
NATF-EPRI Transmission Resiliency Summit
The NATF and EPRI held a joint transmission resiliency summit in March. Topics included GMD, physical security, modeling, and security/resiliency issues outside of the electric utility industry.
March 01, 2016
System Protection Workshop
The NATF held a system protection workshop in February. Topics included maintenance and testing, fiber-based substations, inadvertent operations, and human performance.
February 29, 2016
February Member Newsletter Posted
The NATF’s February newsletter has been posted to the member site. Article topics include causal analysis, SCADA, reliability initiatives, peer reviews, metrics, operating experience, lessons learned, and surveys.
December 22, 2015
December Board and Members Meetings
The NATF held its quarterly board and members meetings in December. Members ratified two new members and discussed a range of industry topics, including safety, resiliency, equipment performance, asset management, human-performance tools, operating experience, and gas-electric coordination.
November 23, 2015
NATF Posts One-Pagers on Resiliency and EMP for Industry Use
In recent years, a culmination of events related to extreme weather (e.g., Hurricane Sandy) and sabotage has raised awareness of the need for increased focus on system resiliency, which can be described as preparing for, operating through, and recovering from a high impact, low frequency (HILF) event. Since 2012, the NATF has had one or more projects focused on improving the industry’s reliability and resiliency in these areas. This concern extends to the potential of damage from electromagnetic pulse (EMP), high‐altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP), and intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) attacks or the possibility of an extreme or unprecedented geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) event.
These issues are of high importance for a number of reasons, including public safety, the integrity of industry infrastructure, and our society’s high reliance on electronic technology (computers, microprocessors, etc.). Accordingly, the NATF has developed overview documents on Resiliency and EMP/GMD/IEMI to provide perspective on these important issues and share some information regarding how NATF members are responding to and preparing for these risks and potential significant events. These documents are only one component of the multi-layered approach NATF members are using to help improve reliability and resiliency.
For the benefit of the industry at large, the NATF has posted these documents to the Documents section of its public website (www.natf.net). We continue to develop fact sheets on a variety of topics, and may share additional versions in the future.
November 21, 2015
November Member Newsletter Posted
The NATF’s November newsletter has been posted to the member site. Article topics include security, industry topic one-pagers, cold-weather preparation, misoperations, equipment performance and maintenance, peer reviews, metrics, operating experience, lessons learned, resiliency, and right-of-way programs.
October 30, 2015
Vegetation Management Workshop
The NATF held a vegetation management workshop in October. Topics included budgeting, contracting, easements, compliance, benchmarking, and LiDAR.
October 14, 2015
NATF Posts MOD-032 Reference Document for Industry Use
Accurate data for models is important for the reliable planning and operation of the bulk electric system. Recommendation 24 from the “Final Report on the August 14, 2003 Blackout in the United States and Canada: Causes and Recommendations” noted steps be taken to “Improve quality of system modeling data and data exchange practices.”
Consistent with Recommendation 24, NERC Reliability Standard MOD-032-1 establishes consistent modeling data requirements and reporting procedures for development of planning horizon cases necessary to support analysis of the reliability of the interconnected transmission system.
NATF subject-matter experts developed a document to provide additional detail on the types of modeling information that are called for under MOD-032-1 Attachment 1. The document contains helpful information to Generator Owners and Load Serving Entities responsible for providing data to the Planning Coordinator/Transmission Planner.
For the benefit of the industry at large, the NATF has posted this document to the Public Documents section of its public website (www.natf.net)
September 30, 2015
September Board and Annual Members Meetings
The NATF recently held its September board and annual members meetings. Members approved the NATF’s 2016 business plan and budget, elected new board members and officers, and ratified a new NATF member. Focus topics included security, lessons-learned strategies, resiliency, infrastructure, and equipment.
August 30, 2015
Training Workshop
The NATF held its annual train-the-trainer workshop in August. Topics included training principles of excellence, training practice documents, simulation technology, human-performance improvement, training delivery methods and teaching techniques, and PER‐005‐2.
August 21, 2015
August Member Newsletter Posted
The NATF’s August newsletter has been posted to the member site. Article topics include assistance, training, peer reviews, metrics, operating experience, lessons learned, new practices documents, and IT system monitoring.
July 01, 2015
Metrics Meeting
The NATF’s Metrics Working Group held its annual face-to-face meeting in June. Topics included enhanced reporting features, outage metrics analysis, and data collection practices. The meeting featured the highest attendance to date for the group.
June 29, 2015
NATF Posts CIP-014 Practice Documents for Industry Use
Due to its importance to transmission reliability, physical security is a key focus area for the NATF. Accordingly, members have been working together to share ideas and practices for physical-security improvements.
As part of this overall effort, teams of subject-matter experts from NATF member organizations have developed documents to help position members to address Requirements R1, R4, and R5 of NERC’s new Physical Security Standard (CIP-014).
For the benefit of the industry at large, the NATF has posted these documents to the Public Documents section of its public website (www.natf.net).
June 25, 2015
June Board and Members Meetings
The NATF held its quarterly board and members meetings in June. Members approved the NATF’s 2015-2019 Long-Range Operational Plan and ratified one new member. Focus topics included cyber and physical security, resiliency, equipment, safety, human performance, and operating experience.