The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) presents a comprehensive strategy to safeguard the reliability, resilience, and security of the Bulk Power System (BPS) as inverter-based resources (IBRs)—including wind, solar photovoltaic, battery storage, and hybrid plants—rapidly transform the grid. With projections of over 500 gigawatts of solar and 360 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2032, IBRs offer significant benefits, such as enhanced grid flexibility, but introduce systemic risks like momentary cessation, unwarranted tripping, and controller instabilities, as identified through six years of event analyses. Guided by the NERC Risk Framework, which outlines six steps—risk identification, prioritization, mitigation development, deployment, success measurement, and residual risk monitoring, this strategy emphasizes collaboration with industry stakeholders to address these high-impact risks. By leveraging event analyses, disturbance reports, and partnerships, NERC aims to ensure IBR integration strengthens the BPS without compromising reliability.
NERC’s IBR Risk Mitigation Strategy is built on eight core tenets, including enhancing generator ride-through via standards like PRC-024 and IEEE 2800-2022, advocating FERC reforms to modernize interconnection processes, and promoting robust interconnection requirements from NERC’s 2019 guideline. It addresses model inaccuracies through electromagnetic transient studies, improves commissioning practices, and strengthens post-event performance validation and analysis. Industry engagement is fostered through webinars and collaborations with IEEE and EPRI. Monitoring efforts include proposing an EOP-004 standard for timely disturbance reporting, considering a Level 3 alert, and reviewing the Bulk Electric System definition to include smaller IBRs. The 2022–2023 milestone plan outlines Standards Authorization Requests for EOP-004, PRC-004, FAC-001, and FAC-002, alongside guidelines and white papers on EMT modeling, commissioning, and grid-forming technologies, ensuring a proactive approach to a reliable BPS. Explore the full NERC Inverter-Based Resource Strategy here.
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