Compliance & Enforcement

 

​​NERC’s compliance efforts are comprised of key activities.

Compliance Monitoring is the process used to assess, investigate, evaluate, and audit in order to measure compliance with NERC Reliability Standards. Standards are developed, adopted, and approved through the Reliability Standards Development program and placed into effect pursuant to FERC orders or to applicable authorities in other North American jurisdictions. This statutory responsibility is set forth in section 215(e) of the Federal Power Act as well as 18 C.F.R. §39.7.

Compliance Enforcement is the process by which NERC issues sanctions and ensures mitigation of confirmed violations of mandatory NERC Reliability Standards. As part of these efforts, NERC can also issue directives to immediately address and deter new or further violations, irrespective of their presence or status (i.e., confirmed or alleged). Sanctioning of confirmed violations is determined pursuant to the NERC Sanction Guidelines and is based heavily upon the Violation Risk Factors and Violation Severity Levels of the standards requirements violated and the violations’ duration. Entities found in violation of any standard must submit a mitigation plan for approval by NERC and, once approved, must execute this plan as submitted.

Regional Entity Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Programs NERC relies on the Regional Entities to enforce the NERC Reliability Standards with bulk power system owners, operators, and users through approved regional delegation agreements. Regional Entities are responsible for monitoring compliance of the registered entities within their regional boundaries, assuring mitigation of all violations of approved Reliability Standards and assessing penalties and sanctions for failure to comply.

Regional hearing processes are available to resolve contested violations or penalties or sanctions. If resolution cannot be achieved at the regional level, NERC maintains an appeals process to hear disputes.

Registered entities or other relevant industry stakeholders can report any perceived inconsistency in the methods, practices, or tools of two or more Regional Entities through the Consistency Reporting Tool located on the ERO Enterprise Program Alignment Process page.