A Primer on the NERC Regional Entities

History of the Regional Entities

The regional entities, at the bottom of the structure for the development and enforcement of the reliability standards for the US electric grid, were established by Section 215 of the Federal Power Act as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The statute tried to mimic the balance of power between the federal and state authorities in the US, with REs playing the role of regional (state-like) components.

As of 2023, there are six regional entities:

• Midwest Reliability Organization (MRO);
• Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC);
• ReliabilityFirst (RF);
• SERC Reliability Corporation (SERC);
• Texas Reliability Entity (Texas RE);
• Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC).

The original map of the NERC regional entities included two entities that no longer exist:

• Southwest Power Pool regional entity operation was dissolved in 2018 (by merging into MRO),
• Florida Reliability Coordinating Council was dissolved in July 2019 (by merging into SERC)

What is the Function of the NERC Regional Entities?

The reliability standard development process had Regional Entities developing regional standards to be approved by NERC and FERC. By 2010, the process was slow: just nine standards were developed, all by the WECC.

An RE approves the transmission plans and chooses the projects for regional (as opposed to per-local-pricing-zone) cost allocation.

One of the important roles of an RE is suggesting to NERC (and FERC) to include the facilities into – or exclude from – the list of “elements” that constitute the bulk-power system (BPS, also known as a “bulk electric system”, BES), subject to the oversight of the NERC.

As the reliability and security ecosystem continues to change, the ERO Enterprise is explicitly committed to its collective success in achieving its vision of a highly reliable and secure North American BPS.