In compliance with the NERC Standard Processes Manual, the Standards Committee manages the NERC standards development process for continent-wide reliability standards with the support of the NERC staff to achieve broad bulk power system reliability goals for the industry. The Standards Committee protects the integrity and credibility of the standards development process.
The Standards Committee is a stakeholder group elected by the members of the Registered Ballot Body reporting to the NERC Board of Trustees. Each of the 10 Industry Segments that forms the Registered Ballot Body elects a representative each year to serve a two-year term, thus each segment has two representatives serving a staggered two-year term. If the regular election does not result in at least two members being seated from Canada, then up to two Canadian members garnering the highest percentage of votes within their segment are chosen as additional members of the committee. Thus the full committee may include 20-22 members.
A list of the 10 Industry Segments is as follows:
- Segment 1: Transmission Owners
- Segment 2: Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs)
- Segment 3: Load-Serving Entities (LSEs)
- Segment 4: Transmission Dependent Utilities (TDUs)
- Segment 5: Electric Generators
- Segment 6: Electricity Brokers, Aggregators, and Marketers
- Segment 7: Large Electricity End Users
- Segment 8: Small Electricity Users
- Segment 9: Federal, State, and Provincial Regulatory or other Government Entities
- Segment 10: Regional Entities
The election process is contained in Appendix 3B of the NERC Rules of Procedure. The election process used by all Industry Segments except for Segment 10 includes the following steps:
- A nomination period open for 21 calendar days (to be eligible for nomination, a nominee shall be an employee or agent of an entity registered in the applicable Segment. To allow verification of affiliation, a nominee must be a registered user in the NERC Registered Ballot Body. It is not required that the nominee be the same person as the entity's Registered Ballot Body representative for that Segment.
2. An initial 10 calendar day ballot
• To be elected, a nominee must receive the highest number of votes
cast and the number of affirmative votes must also represent a
simple majority.
3. A run-off election for any segment where no nominee received
the highest number of votes and also achieved a simple majority.
• The runoff is limited to the two nominees who received
the highest number of votes in the initial ballot
• The candidate receiving the highest number of votes is elected
The Standards Committee depends on active participation of the stakeholder community to help develop NERC's Reliability Standards
