FERC Proposes To Approve NERC Physical Security Standard

In proposing to approve NERC's new Physical Security Reliability Standard, FERC also seeks the ability to identify facilities that must be protected.

On July 17, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed to approve¹ a new mandatory reliability standard that would require electric utilities to protect their transmission facilities and control centers against physical threats. Although FERC did not take issue with most of the language in the CIP-014-1² standard proposed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), FERC did express concern over the ability of utilities to identify their own critical facilities, even when that determination is subject to third-party review. To address that concern, FERC proposed to direct NERC to modify the standard so that FERC, or other appropriate federal agencies, could direct electric utilities to add additional facilities to their list of facilities that need physical security protections.