EIS Black Sky Working Groups

EIS Council is hosting three working groups, each focused on different aspects of resilience. 

The Blackstart WG, Emergency Communications/Emergency Management WG, and Resilience and Redundancy Policy Working Group.   Each of the Black Sky working groups shares the same overarching objective: to enhance the resilience of electric grids and other critical infrastructures to Black Sky Events.  Our monthly discussions are taking place over Zoom, and we welcome new professionals. Here you can read more about the objectives, Outputs, who it is for, and the commitment involved. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’re interested in participating in our working groups. 

Blackstart Working Group

Objectives:

Increase blackstart capacity

This goal is concrete: increase the actual number of physical blackstart and next-start units in the grid. The objective should also increase the number of redundant blackstart cranking paths.

Improve blackstart robustness to handle Black Sky events

This goal is to include plausible worst-case Black Sky environments as the “design basis threat” for the blackstart plans. This means factoring in not only intra-grid challenges, but also extra-grid challenges, such as severely disrupted communications, transportation, water, etc.

Strengthen blackstart “requirements”                                                                                              

Often, “requirement” is used to mean a legal obligation, such as a regulation. We are using “requirements” here more broadly, to include non-regulatory constructs such as internal company policies, training modalities, best practices, and purchasing guidelines, among others.

Outputs

To achieve these objectives, the working group will develop policy and technical recommendations that can be implemented by relevant stakeholders in the electric power sector. The recommendations will be shared with relevant stakeholders through networking relationships and/or official channels, as determined by the Working Group members.

Participants

Participants in the Blackstart working group currently include the contributors to the EPRO V Blackstart Handbook and invited professionals from the electric power sector and other infrastructure sectors; relevant government (all levels) entities, and other public interest organizations.

Commitments

The Blackstart Working Group typically meets once per month. In addition, a shared repository of active policy whitepapers and other materials is held for working group members to contribute their expertise and experience between monthly meetings.

Emergency Communications and Emergency Management Working Group

Objectives:

Improve Emergency Communications within the electric power sector

The power sector cannot rely on commercial telecommunications, up to and including satellite comms, in a Black Sky event. Robust, protected, dedicated communications are required. Growing the Energy Sector Web (ESWebTM).[2]

Improve partnerships between Emergency Management and Infrastructure

Emergency Managers often are restricted to responding to events after they happen. Building a critical partnership and feedback loop between infrastructure owners/operators and emergency managers is critical to build in resilience before a Black Sky event.

Improve Black Sky’s resilience of communications technologies

Advancing the cybersecurity, electromagnetic pulse protection, self-power capability, and physical hardness and/or flexibility/adaptability of communications technologies, including Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency (PACE) levels of communications.

Outputs

To achieve these objectives, the working group will develop policy and technical recommendations that can be implemented by relevant emergency managers and stakeholders in the electric power sector. The recommendations will be shared with relevant stakeholders through networking relationships and/or official channels, as determined by the Working Group members.

Participants

Participants in the Emergency Communications and Emergency Management working group currently include emergency managers; professionals from the electric power sector, telecommunications, and other infrastructure sectors; relevant government (all levels) entities; and other public interest organizations.

Commitments

The Emergency Communications and Emergency Management Working Group typically meets once per month. In addition, a shared repository of active policy whitepapers and other materials is held for working group members to contribute their expertise and experience between monthly meetings.

Resilience and Redundancy Policy Working Group

Objectives:

Advance Resilience within the electric power sector

Reliability is a well-defined, understood, and, importantly, both required and funded by rate cases in the electric power sector, whereas Resilience is currently not. The working group endeavors to close this gap and bring resilience into a similar priority to reliability.

Define resilience, resilience metrics, and resilience investments

Many resilience definitions exist that are similar but not the same. We want to arrive at a broad, useful definition, and, importantly, concrete, measurable metrics. Resilience investments should be justified on the basis of “avoided costs of failure”.

Create a Black Sky Resilience Culture

Resilience cannot be achieved post-disaster; it must be invested in prior to any event. Black Sky resilience principles must be in mind from the conception and design phase of any infrastructure project, both from the industry and the regulatory sides.

Outputs

In order to achieve these objectives, the working group will develop policy and technical recommendations that can be implemented by relevant emergency managers and electric power sector stakeholders. The recommendations will be shared with relevant stakeholders through networking relationships and/or official channels, as determined by the Working Group members.

Participants

Participants in the Resilience and Redundancy Policy working group currently include professionals from the electric power sector and other infrastructure sectors; technical and policy consultants, relevant government (all levels) entities, and other public interest organizations.

Commitments

The Resilience and Redundancy Working Group typically meets once per month. In addition, a shared repository of active policy whitepapers and other materials is held for working group members to contribute their expertise and experience between monthly meetings.

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[1] Black Sky Events: Large-footprint (Regional to International), Long-duration (> 1 month) complete electric power blackout,  with cascading failures of the other critical infrastructures.

[2] For information on ESWeb, visit: https://eiscouncil.org/esw/

By: Lihi Ganani