NERC NERC Compliance and Enforcement 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which body has primary authority to enforce NERC reliability standards in the United States?
- NERC directly
- Regional Entities under delegation from NERC (Correct answer)
- The US Department of Energy
- State public utility commissions
Correct answer: Regional Entities under delegation from NERC
Regional Entities conduct compliance monitoring and enforcement under delegation agreements with NERC.
Question 2: What is the maximum civil penalty FERC can impose on entities violating NERC reliability standards?
- $100,000 per day per violation
- $1,000,000 per day per violation (Correct answer)
- $500,000 per day per violation
- $250,000 per day per violation
Correct answer: $1,000,000 per day per violation
Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, FERC can impose civil penalties of up to $1,000,000 per day per violation.
Question 3: What is a 'Find, Fix, Track and Report' (FFT) process in NERC compliance?
- A method for tracking physical security inspections
- A streamlined method for handling less serious, self-reported violations (Correct answer)
- A market surveillance tool used by RTOs
- An emergency response coordination process
Correct answer: A streamlined method for handling less serious, self-reported violations
The FFT process allows Regional Entities to efficiently handle less serious, self-reported, or promptly mitigated violations without full enforcement proceedings.
Question 4: In NERC's compliance framework, what does 'self-report' mean?
- A utility reports its own potential violation before being discovered by a Regional Entity (Correct answer)
- A utility files annual reliability reports with FERC
- An operator reports an outage to NERC within one hour
- A generator reports its capacity to the RTO
Correct answer: A utility reports its own potential violation before being discovered by a Regional Entity
Self-reporting occurs when a registered entity identifies and voluntarily reports its own potential violation to the Regional Entity.
Question 5: Which NERC document establishes the rules for conducting compliance audits?
- Rules of Procedure
- Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program (CMEP) (Correct answer)
- Operating Manual
- Functional Model
Correct answer: Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program (CMEP)
The CMEP (Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program) outlines procedures for monitoring, auditing, and enforcing NERC reliability standards.
Question 6: What is the purpose of a Mitigation Plan in NERC compliance?
- To reduce wildfire risk near transmission corridors
- To document how a violating entity will correct a violation and prevent recurrence (Correct answer)
- To establish interconnection agreements between utilities
- To fund grid hardening projects after major storms
Correct answer: To document how a violating entity will correct a violation and prevent recurrence
A Mitigation Plan describes the corrective actions a registered entity will take to fix a violation and prevent it from recurring.
NERC NERC Compliance and Enforcement 1
Which body has primary authority to enforce NERC reliability standards in the United States?