NERC NERC Emergency Preparedness and Response 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the required timeframe for a Transmission Operator to notify its Reliability Coordinator of an emergency condition under NERC IRO standards?
- Within 30 minutes
- As soon as possible (Correct answer)
- Within 1 hour
- Before the next scheduled status call
Correct answer: As soon as possible
NERC standards require transmission operators to notify their Reliability Coordinator as soon as possible when an emergency condition exists.
Question 2: Which NERC standard requires entities to have plans for manual load shedding?
- EOP-001
- EOP-003 (Correct answer)
- EOP-005
- IRO-001
Correct answer: EOP-003
EOP-003 requires Balancing Authorities and Transmission Operators to have load shedding plans and train operators on executing them.
Question 3: During a grid emergency, which entity has the highest level of operational authority over the interconnected transmission system?
- The Balancing Authority with the most load
- The Reliability Coordinator (Correct answer)
- NERC's operations center
- The regional transmission organization (RTO)
Correct answer: The Reliability Coordinator
The Reliability Coordinator has the highest level of operational authority and can direct actions by Transmission Operators and Balancing Authorities during emergencies.
Question 4: What does NERC require entities to do following a significant disturbance under the post-disturbance analysis process?
- Submit a press release to local media within 48 hours
- Conduct a root cause analysis and file a disturbance report with NERC (Correct answer)
- Immediately shut down the affected facility for inspection
- Notify the Department of Homeland Security before any other action
Correct answer: Conduct a root cause analysis and file a disturbance report with NERC
After a significant disturbance, entities must conduct post-event analysis and submit disturbance reports to NERC and the applicable Regional Entity.
Question 5: NERC's 'Severe Impact Resilience' efforts focus primarily on preparing the bulk electric system for:
- Day-to-day load fluctuations and normal contingencies
- High-impact, low-frequency events such as geomagnetic disturbances, coordinated attacks, or pandemics (Correct answer)
- Routine transmission line maintenance outages
- Seasonal peak demand planning
Correct answer: High-impact, low-frequency events such as geomagnetic disturbances, coordinated attacks, or pandemics
Severe Impact Resilience addresses High-Impact, Low-Frequency (HILF) events — extreme but rare scenarios that could cause widespread, long-duration outages.
Question 6: What is the primary role of NERC's GridEx exercise?
- A real-time competition between regional grid operators for efficiency awards
- A biennial industry-wide exercise simulating a large-scale cyber and physical attack on the electric grid (Correct answer)
- An annual training event for new control room operators
- A simulation of extreme weather events to test load forecasting accuracy
Correct answer: A biennial industry-wide exercise simulating a large-scale cyber and physical attack on the electric grid
GridEx is a biennial exercise where grid operators, utilities, government agencies, and critical infrastructure partners practice responding to simulated cyber and physical attacks.
NERC NERC Emergency Preparedness and Response 2
What is the required timeframe for a Transmission Operator to notify its Reliability Coordinator of an emergency condition under NERC IRO standards?