On October 7, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a Recommendation to Industry (Recommendation) requesting that transmission owners review their current Facility Ratings Methodology for their transmission facilities to determine whether the methodologies incorporate the actual field conditions of the facilities. NERC is concerned that transmission owners have not considered the existing field conditions surrounding a transmission facility when establishing facility ratings. Under the Recommendation, all of the identified entities are required to submit a plan for how they will assess the actual condition of all of their transmission facilities, potentially leading to widespread revisions of transmission facilities ratings. Entities that formally received the Recommendation are required to submit a receipt of acknowledgment By October 20, 2010, and submit plans for assessing their transmission facilities By December 15, 2010. While the Recommendation is not itself an enforceable Reliability Standard, the reporting obligations are binding on the recipients pursuant to federal regulations.
The Recommendation arose out of a conductor-to-ground fault resulting from vegetation contact with a bulk power transmission line of a transmission owner. Upon a subsequent review using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, the transmission owner found more than 100 conductor-to-ground clearance issues that had previously gone undetected due to inconsistencies between the actual topography surrounding the transmission lines and the lines’ design. As a result of this finding, NERC issued the Recommendation as a way to prod the industry to identify and eliminate these inconsistencies. Read more…