IRO-001-1.1: Reliability Coordination Responsibilities and Authorities
Purpose
Reliability Coordinators must have the authority, plans, and agreements in place to immediately direct reliability entities within their Reliability Coordinator Areas to re-dispatch generation, reconfigure transmission, or reduce load to mitigate critical conditions to return the system to a reliable state. If a Reliability Coordinator delegates tasks to others, the Reliability Coordinator retains its responsibilities for complying with NERC and regional standards. Standards of conduct are necessary to ensure the Reliability Coordinator does not act in a manner that favors one market participant over another.
Applicability
- Reliability Coordinators
- Regional Reliability Organizations
- Transmission Operator
- Balancing Authorities
- Generator Operators
- Transmission Service Providers
- Load-Serving Entities
- Purchasing-Selling Entities
Effective Date
May 13, 2009
Requirements
R1. Each Regional Reliability Organization, subregion, or interregional coordinating group shall establish one or more Reliability Coordinators to continuously assess transmission reliability and coordinate emergency operations among the operating entities within the region and across the regional boundaries.
R2. The Reliability Coordinator shall comply with a regional reliability plan approved by the NERC Operating Committee.
R3. The Reliability Coordinator shall have clear decision-making authority to act and to direct actions to be taken by Transmission Operators, Balancing Authorities, Generator Operators, Transmission Service Providers, Load-Serving Entities, and Purchasing Selling Entities within its Reliability Coordinator Area to preserve the integrity and reliability of the Bulk Electric System. These actions shall be taken without delay, but no longer than 30 minutes.
R4. Reliability Coordinators that delegate tasks to other entities shall have formal operating agreements with each entity to which tasks are delegated. The Reliability Coordinator shall verify that all delegated tasks are understood, communicated, and addressed within its Reliability Coordinator Area. All responsibilities for complying with NERC and regional standards applicable to Reliability Coordinators shall remain with the Reliability Coordinator.
R5. The Reliability Coordinator shall list within its reliability plan all entities to which the Reliability Coordinator has delegated required tasks.
R6. The Reliability Coordinator shall verify that all delegated tasks are carried out by NERC-certified Reliability Coordinator operating personnel.
R7. The Reliability Coordinator shall have clear, comprehensive coordination agreements with adjacent Reliability Coordinators to ensure that System Operating Limit or Interconnection Reliability Operating Limit violation mitigation requiring actions in adjacent Reliability Coordinator Areas are coordinated.
R8. Transmission Operators, Balancing Authorities, Generator Operators, Transmission Service Providers, Load-Serving Entities, and Purchasing-Selling Entities shall comply with Reliability Coordinator directives unless such actions would violate safety, equipment, or regulatory or statutory requirements. Under these circumstances, the Transmission Operator, Balancing Authority, Generator Operator, Transmission Service Provider, Load-Serving Entity, or Purchasing-Selling Entity shall immediately inform the Reliability Coordinator of the inability to perform the directive so that the Reliability Coordinator may implement alternate remedial actions.
R9. The Reliability Coordinator shall act in the interests of reliability for the overall Reliability Coordinator Area and the Interconnection before the interests of any other entity.
Measures
M1. Each Regional Reliability Organization shall have, and provide upon request, evidence that could include, but is not limited to signed agreements or other equivalent evidence that will be used to confirm that it established one or more Reliability Coordinators to continuously assess transmission reliability and coordinate emergency operations among the operating entities within the region and across the regional boundaries as described in Requirement 1.
M2. Each Reliability Coordinator shall have and provide upon request evidence that could include, but is not limited to, job descriptions, signed agreements, an authority letter signed by an officer of the company, or other equivalent evidence that will be used to confirm that the Reliability Coordinator has the authority to act as described in Requirement 3.
M3. The Reliability Coordinator shall have and provide upon request current formal operating agreements with entities that have been delegated any Reliability Coordinator tasks (Requirement 4 Part 1).
M4. The Reliability Coordinator shall have and provide upon request evidence that could include, but is not limited to, job descriptions, signed agreements, records of training sessions, monitoring procedures or other equivalent evidence that will be used to confirm that all delegated tasks are understood, communicated, and addressed within its Reliability Coordinator Area(Requirement 4 Part 2 and Requirement 5).
M5. The Reliability Coordinator shall have and provide upon request evidence that could include, but is not limited to, records that show each operating person assigned to perform a Reliability Coordinator delegated task has a NERC Reliability Coordinator certification credential, or equivalent evidence confirming that delegated tasks were carried out by NERC certified Reliability Coordinator operating personnel, as specified in Requirement 6.
M6. The Reliability Coordinator shall have and provide upon request as evidence, signed agreements with adjacent Reliability Coordinators that will be used to confirm that it will coordinate corrective actions in the event SOL and IROL mitigation actions within neighboring areas must be taken. (Requirement 7)
M7. Each Transmission Operator, Balancing Authority, Generator Operator, Transmission Service Provider, Load-Serving Entity, or Purchasing-Selling Entity shall have and provide upon request evidence that could include, but is not limited to, operator logs, voice recordings or transcripts of voice recordings, or other equivalent evidence that will be used to confirm that it did comply with the Reliability Coordinator’s directives, or if for safety, equipment, regulatory or statutory requirements it could not comply, it informed the Reliability Coordinator immediately. (Requirement 8)