The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently approved a North American Electric Reliability Corporation Reliability Standard that will update protections for electric infrastructure that could be vulnerable to a physical attack.
The standard was developed following an increase in reports of physical attacks on electric substations, including attacks in Moore County, North Carolina and at several substations in the Pacific Northwest in 2022.
In December 2022, FERC directed NERC to study the adequacy of requirements in Physical Security Reliability Standard CIP-014-3.
In an April 2023 report to FERC, NERC found that entities used inconsistent approaches to conducting risk assessments of physical security, largely due to a lack of specificity in the requirement language.
The new standard will enhance reliability by ensuring entities use an adequate and consistent approach to evaluating instability and identifying transmission stations, substations, and associated primary control centers that are critical to the operation of the bulk power system, NERC said.
"NERC appreciates FERC’s leadership on this critical security issue. In the future, NERC will continue to monitor current and emerging vulnerabilities to the security of the electric grid and propose appropriate risk mitigation actions," it said.
The FERC order was issued on Sept. 10.
