[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 148 (Wednesday, August 3, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47414-47416]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-16590]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. IC22-24-000]


Commission Information Collection Activities (FERC-725Z); Comment 
Request; Extension

AGENCY: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy.

ACTION: Notice of information collection and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or 
FERC) is soliciting public comment on the currently

[[Page 47415]]

approved information collection, FERC-725Z (Mandatory Reliability 
Standards: IRO Reliability Standards).

DATES: Comments on the collection of information are due October 3, 
2022.

ADDRESSES: You may submit your comments (identified by Docket No. IC22-
24-000) by one of the following methods:
    Electronic filing through https://www.ferc.gov, is preferred.
     Electronic Filing: Documents must be filed in acceptable 
native applications and print-to-PDF, but not in scanned or picture 
format.
     For those unable to file electronically, comments may be 
filed by USPS mail or by hand (including courier) delivery:
    [cir] Mail via U.S. Postal Service Only: Addressed to: Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission, Secretary of the Commission, 888 First 
Street NE, Washington, DC 20426.
    [cir] Hand (including courier) delivery: Deliver to: Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission, Office of the Secretary, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, 
Rockville, MD 20852.
    Instructions: All submissions must be formatted and filed in 
accordance with submission guidelines at: https://www.ferc.gov. For 
user assistance, contact FERC Online Support by email at 
[email protected], or by phone at (866) 208-3676 (toll-free).
    Docket: Users interested in receiving automatic notification of 
activity in this docket or in viewing/downloading comments and 
issuances in this docket may do so at https://www.ferc.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ellen Brown may be reached by email at 
[email protected], telephone at (202) 502-8663.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Title: FERC-725Z (Mandatory Reliability Standards: IRO Reliability 
Standards).
    OMB Control No.: 1902-0276.
    Type of Request: Extension to this currently approved information 
collection.
    Abstract: On August 8, 2005, The Electricity Modernization Act of 
2005, which is Title XII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), 
was enacted into law.\1\ Under section 215 of the Federal Power Act 
(FPA) implemented in 18 CFR 40, the Commission requires a Commission-
certified Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) to develop mandatory 
and enforceable Reliability Standards \2\, which are subject to 
Commission review and approval. In 2006, the Commission established a 
process to select and certify an ERO and, subsequently, certified the 
North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) as the ERO.\3\
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    \1\ The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct), Public Law No 109-58, 
Title XII, Subtitle A, 119 Stat. 594, 941 (2005), codified at 16 
U.S.C. 824o (2000).
    \2\ The Federal Power Act (as modified by the EPAct) states 
``[t]he terms ``reliability standard'' means a requirement, approved 
by the Commission under this section, to provide for reliable 
operation of the bulk-power system. The term includes requirements 
for the operation of existing bulk-power system facilities, 
including cybersecurity protection, and the design of planned 
additions or modifications to such facilities to the extent 
necessary to provide for reliable operation of the bulk-power 
system, but the term does not include any requirement to enlarge 
such facilities or to construct new transmission capacity or 
generation capacity.''
    \3\ North American Electric Reliability Corp., 116 FERC ] 
61,062, order on reh'g and compliance, 117 FERC ] 61,126 (2006), 
order on compliance, 118 FERC ] 61,190, order on reh'g, 119 FERC ] 
61,046 (2007), aff'd sub nom. Alcoa Inc. v. FERC, 564 F.3d 1342 
(D.C. Cir. 2009).
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    The ERO develops proposed Reliability Standards \4\ and, if 
approved by NERC, submits them to the Commission for review and 
approval. When the standards are approved by the Commission, the 
Reliability Standards become mandatory and must be enforced by the ERO, 
subject to Commission oversight.
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    \4\ The NERC Standard Processes Manual, Appendix 3A of the NERC 
Rules Of Procedure, (posted at https://www.nerc.com/FilingsOrders/us/RuleOfProcedureDL/SPM_Clean_Mar2019.pdf) describes the process 
for developing, modifying, withdrawing, or retiring a Reliability 
Standard.
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    NERC established the following IRO standards within FERC-725Z:
    IRO-001-4 purpose is to establish the responsibility of Reliability 
Coordinators to act or direct other entities to act.
    In a joint petition dated May 30, 2019, the North American Electric 
Reliability Corporation (``NERC'') and Western Electricity Coordinating 
Council (``WECC'') requested Commission approval for Reliability 
Standard IRO-002-6 (now IRO-002-7) (Reliability Coordination, 
Monitoring and Analysis). NERC and WECC stated that the ``Reliability 
Standard IRO-002-7 reflects the addition of a regional Variance 
containing additional requirements applicable to Reliability 
Coordinators providing service to entities in the Western 
Interconnection.'' NERC maintains that the data exchange capability 
requirement in Reliability Standard IRO-002-7, Requirement R1 is 
covered by Reliability Standard IRO-008-2, Requirement R1, which 
obligates the reliability coordinator to perform operational planning 
analyses to assess whether the planned operations for the next-day will 
exceed System Operating Limits and Interconnection Reliability 
Operating Limits within its Wide Area. NERC asserts that ``to perform 
the required operational planning analyses, the Reliability Coordinator 
must have the data it deems necessary from those entities that possess 
it.''
    Currently effective IRO-009-2 applicable to reliability 
coordinators and the purpose of the standard is to prevent instability, 
uncontrolled separation, or cascading outages that adversely impact the 
reliability of the interconnection by ensuring prompt action to prevent 
or mitigate instances of exceeding Interconnection Reliability 
Operating Limits (IROLs).
    Additionally, regarding data exchange, NERC cites Reliability 
Standard IRO-010-2 (Reliability Coordinator Data Specification and 
Collection) and its stated purpose of preventing instability, 
uncontrolled separation, or cascading outages ``by ensuring the 
Reliability Coordinator has the data it needs to monitor and assess the 
operation of its Reliability Coordinator Area.'' NERC states that under 
Reliability Standard IRO-010-2, Requirements R1, R2 and R3, the 
reliability coordinator must specify the data necessary for it to 
perform its operational planning analyses and provide the 
specifications to the entities from which it needs data who then must 
comply with the data request using a mutually agreeable format and 
security protocols.
    IRO-014-3 purpose is to ensure that each Reliability Coordinator's 
operations are coordinated such that they will not adversely impact 
other Reliability Coordinator Areas and to preserve the reliability 
benefits of interconnected operations.
    IRO-017-1 (Outage Coordination) purpose is to ensure that outages 
are properly coordinated in the Operations Planning time horizon and 
Near-Term Transmission Planning Horizon. Reliability coordinators, 
planning coordinators, balancing authorities, transmission owners and 
transmission planners are applicable entities for IRO-017-1.
    IRO-018-1 (Reliability Coordinator Real-time Reliability Monitoring 
and Analysis Capabilities), submitted by North American Electric 
Reliability Corporation (NERC). Requirement R3 requires reliability 
coordinators to have an alarm process monitor that provides 
notification to system operators when the failure of a real-time 
monitoring alarm processor has occurred. In this order, the Reliability 
Standards build on monitoring, real-time assessments and support 
effective situational awareness. The Reliability Standards accomplish 
this by requiring applicable entities to:

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(1) provide notification to operators of real-time monitoring alarm 
failures; (2) provide operators with indications of the quality of 
information being provided by their monitoring and analysis 
capabilities; and (3) address deficiencies in the quality of 
information being provided by their monitoring and analysis 
capabilities.
    NERC observes that the performance of the requirements it cites is 
premised on the existence of data exchange capabilities, regardless of 
whether a separate requirement expressly requires the reliability 
coordinator to have data exchange capabilities in place. In review the 
725Z collection for the IRO Reliability Standards, the number of 
entities/respondents was checked and broken down into the appliable 
type of entity for each reliability standard. In the past combining 
reliability standards caused the same reliability standard to be 
accounted for multiple times, resulting in the previously recorded 
6,686 responses. These numbers were revised and updated to be the new 
calculated total of 953 responses. Staff looked at each reliability 
standard as its own unique project and in doing so eliminated the 
multiple entity count by making a more accurate representation of the 
number of responses.
    Type of Respondents: Reliability coordinators (RC), planning 
coordinators (PC), balancing authorities (BA), transmission owners 
(TO), transmission planners (TP), Transmission Operators (TOP) are 
included entities for Estimate of Annual Burden: \5\ The Commission 
estimates the changes in the annual public reporting burden and cost 
\6\ as follows.
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    \5\ Burden is defined as the total time, effort, or financial 
resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or 
disclose or provide information to or for a federal agency. For 
further explanation of what is included in the information 
collection burden, refer to 5 Code of Federal Regulations 1320.3.
    \6\ The hourly cost figures, for salary plus benefits, for the 
new standards are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 
information (at http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics2_22.htm), as of 
May 2021, and benefits information for March 2021 (at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm). For salary plus benefits, 
for reporting requirements, an electrical engineer (code 17-2071) is 
$72.15/hour; for the recordkeeping requirements.

FERC-725Z--Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements for Reliability Standards IRO-001, IRO-002, IRO-008, IRO-009, IRO-010, IRO-014, IRO-017, and IRO-018
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                                   Number of    Annual  number
    Information collection       respondents &   of  responses   Total number   Average burden hours & cost  Total annual burden hours &   Total annual
         requirements           type of entity  per respondent   of responses         per response ($)          total annual cost ($)       burden cost
                                           (1)             (2)     (1) * (2) =  (4)........................  (3) * (4) = (5)............         (5)/(1)
                                                                           (3)
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IRO-001-4.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  24 hrs. $1,731.6...........  288 hrs. $20,779.2.........        $1,731.6
                                     168 (TOP)               1             168  12 hrs. 865.8..............  2,016 hrs. 145,454.4.......           865.8
IRO-002-7.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  24 hrs., 1,731.6...........  288 hrs., 20,779.2.........         1,731.6
IRO-008-2.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  160 hrs., 11,544...........  1,920 hrs., 138,528........          11,544
IRO-009-2.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  12 hrs. 865.8..............  144 hrs. 10,389.6..........           865.8
IRO-010-3.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  24 hrs., 1,731.6...........  288 hrs., 20,779.2.........         1,731.6
IRO-014-3.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  12 hrs., 865.8.............  144 hrs., 10,389.6.........           865.8
IRO-017-1.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  1,200 hrs., 86,580.........  14,400 hrs., 1,038,960.....          86,580
                                       63 (PC)               1              63  96 hrs., 6,926.4...........  6,048 hrs., 436,363.2......         6,926.4
                                      204 (TP)               1             204  96 hrs., 6,926.4...........  19,584 hrs., 1,412,985.6...         6,926.4
                                      326 (TO)               1             326  8 hrs, 577.2...............  2,608 Hrs., 188,167.2......           577.2
                                       96 (BA)               1              96  8 hr., 577.2...............  758 hrs., 54,689.7.........           577.2
IRO-018-1.....................         12 (RC)               1              12  34 hrs., 2,453.1...........  288 hrs., 20,779.2.........        $2,453.1
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    Total for FERC-725Z.......  ..............  ..............             953  ...........................  48,774 hrs., 3,519,044.1...  ..............
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    Comments: Comments are invited on: (1) whether the collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the Commission, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (2) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden and 
cost of the collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used; (3) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility and clarity of the information collection; and (4) ways to 
minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are 
to respond, including the use of automated collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology.

    Dated: July 28, 2022.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2022-16590 Filed 8-2-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P