NERC unveils 3-year plan

NERC used a May 15 webinar to lay out its 2027-2029 three-year plan, giving utilities, generators, vendors and other grid participants a clearer view of where reliability governance is headed over the next three years. The plan follows a one-year 2026 “bridge year” that NERC adopted after deciding in 2025 that political and economic uncertainty made a full multi-year plan premature. (rtoinsider.com) RTO Insider reported that the new plan is organized around focus areas that include modernization, security and engagement, while NERC Chief Executive Jim Robb said participants across the ERO Enterprise had shown “incredible alignment.” The immediate significance is procedural rather than rhetorical. (nerc.com) NERC’s own materials show the organization is pairing the plan with work to redesign how reliability standards are developed, revise Rules of Procedure and expand stakeholder engagement. Robb also said in a May 6 industry letter that NERC is seeking a short-term surge in project management, stakeholder engagement and engineering capacity to handle what he described as time-sensitive reliability work. ### Why did NERC wait until now to publish a new three-year plan? NERC had originally expected its next plan to cover 2026-2028, but changed course and treated 2026 as a bridge year. (rtoinsider.com) RTO Insider reported that Robb had described long-term planning in early 2025 as “a fool’s mission” because of economic and political uncertainty. The 2026 bridge-year budget documents said NERC wanted time to stabilize operations, embed new executive leadership and refine organizational strategy before resuming a full three-year planning cycle. That helps explain why the new document now covers 2027-2029 instead. (nerc.com) ### What is actually in the 2027-2029 plan? The 2027-2029 plan is organized around six strategic priorities under four long-term focus areas, according to RTO Insider. The published summary points to energy, security and engagement among those areas, with energy work focused on modernizing reliability assessments and analytical capabilities, security work focused on threat detection and coordination, and engagement work aimed at improving outreach to industry and policymakers. (rtoinsider.com) Robb’s May 6 letter listed six major focus areas that align with that direction: implementing the standards-process redesign approved in February, completing inverter-based resource requirements tied to FERC Orders 901 and 909, advancing the CIP roadmap, finishing supply-chain and wildfire-related directives, and continuing gas-electric coordination reforms, alongside the large-load effort. (nerc.com) ### Where does “modernization” show up in practice? NERC’s standards modernization effort is the clearest example. The NERC board said in February that it accepted recommendations from the Modernization of Standards Processes and Procedures Task Force to transform the reliability standards framework so it can keep pace with emerging bulk power system risk. (rtoinsider.com) Those recommendations are not limited to internal process. NERC said implementation will require revisions to its Rules of Procedure, revisions to standing committee charters and continued stakeholder engagement. For utilities, equipment suppliers, developers and consultants, that points to a more formal and faster-moving standards environment, especially where interconnection, cyber, inverter-based resources and large-load integration are concerned. (nerc.com) That last point is an inference from the listed workstreams and should be read as such. ### Why are large loads and outreach so central to this plan? Robb used large loads as the example of how the new approach is supposed to work. (nerc.com) RTO Insider reported that NERC has already issued a Level 3 alert and a reliability guideline on computational large loads and is taking comments on registration criteria, which Robb cited as evidence that the organization is moving faster. His May 6 letter said NERC wants final registry criteria and baseline interconnection requirements for computational loads filed with FERC by the end of 2026. Once approved, NERC said it would work with regional entities to begin registering those entities and then develop performance and security requirements with industry. (nerc.com) ### What should industry participants watch next? NERC said it opened an informal comment period on May 18 for proposed Rules of Procedure revisions tied to the standards modernization effort and scheduled a same-day webinar to walk through updates and next steps. Those procedural changes, rather than the headline plan alone, are likely to show where modernization and outreach begin to translate into specific obligations. (rtoinsider.com) By the end of 2026, NERC has said it aims to file final computational-load registry criteria and baseline interconnection requirements with FERC, while the 2027-2029 plan and related budgets will guide work across NERC and the regional entities through 2029. (nerc.com 1) (nerc.com 2)