The North American Electric Reliability Corporation on May 4 released an action alert that outlines seven actions that NERC said registered entities must implement to address immediate risks posed by computational loads interfacing with the bulk power system.
The Level 3 Alert was issued as NERC observed customer-initiated large load reductions and significant oscillations that occur in seconds, leaving little or no room for real-time responses, threatening BPS reliability.
The deadline for registered entities to submit their responses is August 3, 2026.
NERC issued a previous Level 2 Alert “Industry Recommendation: Large Load Interconnection, Study, Commissioning, and Operations,” which discussed the recommended practices that NERC deemed necessary to address the emerging risks from large loads.
In the responses provided to the Alert, NERC found that entities generally did not have sufficient processes, procedures, or methods to address risks associated with computational loads. This contrasts with the robust historical experience with traditional non-power electronic non-computational load, NERC said.
As seen in the public report, NERC found specific deficiencies with the treatment of computational loads.
Examples of this load include artificial intelligence training, cryptocurrency mining, and traditional data center uses.
As stated in the public report, NERC determined a set of immediate actions that registered entities should take to reduce the risk to the BPS that warrant issuance of this Level 3 alert, NERC said.
These actions relate to the modeling, study, installed fault recording or instrumentation, commissioning, operation, protection, and control of computational load.
