Current through all regulations passed and filed through March 18, 2024
(A) Each electric utility shall maintain an
emergency plan(s) in accordance with this rule. Each emergency plan shall
include at least the following elements, or if these elements are contained in
another document, each electric utility shall reference such document in the
plan:
(1) A table of contents, mission
statement, and major objectives for the plan.
(2) A description of procedures the electric
utility uses to move from its normal operations to each stage or level of
outage response and restoration of services.
(3) A description of the electric utility's
requirements for restoring service. In the event of an
interruption of electric service during a period of emergency or disaster, an
electric utility's service restoration plan shall give priority to hospitals
that are customers of the electric utility.
(4) Identification and annual updates of all
of the electric utility's critical facilities, as defined by the electric
utility, and reasonable measures to protect its personnel and
facilities.
(5) Contingency
identification, i.e., a plan for training alternative or backup employees,
identifying backup power supplies, and identifying alternative means of
communicating with the office and field employees.
(6) A list of twenty-four hour phone numbers
of fire and police departments and county/regional emergency management
directors in its service area.
(7)
Procedures for requesting aid, utilizing crews from other electric transmission
owners and/or distribution utilities, and utilizing other restoration
assistance.
(8) Procedures for
prompt identification of outage areas; timely assessment of damage; and, as
accurately as conditions allow, provision of an informed estimate of materials,
equipment, personnel, and hours required to restore service.
(9) Performance objectives for telephone
response time to customer outage calls and procedures to accomplish those
objectives.
(10) The policy and
procedures for outage response and restoration of service by priority and a
list of such priorities, including the following:
(a) "Live wire down" situations.
(b) Restoring service to the facilities
designated in paragraph (A)(3) of rule
4901:1-10-07 of
the Administrative Code, and the entities specified in paragraph (A)(4) of rule
4901:1-10-07 of
the Administrative Code.
(c)
Providing information to critical customers who are without service.
(11) The policy and procedures for
providing outage response and restoration of service updates to the
county/regional emergency management directors, mayors, and other elected
officials; the commission's outage coordinator; the commission's media office;
the media; and the electric utility's customers.
(12) The policy and procedures to verify that
service has been restored in each outage area.
(13) The policy and procedures for providing
maximum outage response, seeking outside assistance, and restoring service in a
worst case outage scenario, i.e., "a major event."
(14) The policy and procedures to provide
supervisors who are responsible for emergency response a copy of the latest
edition of the emergency plan.
(15)
The policy and procedures to:
(a) Establish
and maintain a liaison with appropriate fire and police departments within the
electric utility's service territory.
(b) Identify major interruptions of service
during which the electric utility will notify appropriate fire departments,
police departments, and public officials regarding such
interruptions.
(c) Determine
appropriate mutual assistance and communication methodologies that will be used
during major restoration efforts.
(16) In addition to any North American
electric reliability corporation guidelines or standards, a continuity of
operations plan to ensure continuance of minimum essential functions during
events that cause staffing to be reduced. The continuity of operations plan
shall, at a minimum, include:
(a) Plan
activation triggers such as the world health organization's pandemic phase
alert levels, widespread transmission within the United States, or a case at
one or more locations within the state of Ohio.
(b) Identification of a pandemic coordinator
and team with defined roles and responsibilities for preparedness and response
planning.
(c) Identification of
minimal essential functions, minimal staffing required to maintain such
essential functions, and personnel resource pools required to ensure
continuance of those functions in progressive stages associated with a
declining workforce.
(d)
Identification of essential employees and critical inputs (e.g., raw materials,
equipment, suppliers, subcontractor services/products, and logistics) required
to maintain business operations by location and function.
(e) Policies and procedures to address
personal protection initiatives.
(f) Policies and procedures to maintain lines
of communication with the commission during a declared emergency.
(17) Policies and procedures for
conducting an after-action assessment following activation of the emergency
plan. An after-action assessment shall be prepared and shall include lessons
learned, deficiencies in the response to the emergency, deficiencies in the
emergency plan, and actions to be taken to correct said deficiencies.
(B) Each electric utility shall
make its emergency plan and amendments available for review by the commission's
outage coordinator. In the emergency plan made available to the commission's
outage coordinator, the electric utility may redact the following confidential
information:
(1) The electric utility's
internal phone numbers.
(2) The
list of specific critical facilities.
(3) Names, home addresses, and home phone
numbers of electric utility employees, other than employee information required
for the annual emergency contact report pursuant to paragraph (G)(1)(a) of this
rule.
(4) Security and personal
information and numbers (e.g., lock combination, computer access codes, cipher
locks, and security codes).
(5)
Identification of the electric utility's radio and dispatch channels.
(6) Identification of the radio and dispatch
channels and telephone numbers of the following:
(a) Fire department.
(b) Police department.
(c) Other emergency/safety
organizations.
(d) Government and
public officials.
(7)
Similar information approved by the commission's outage coordinator.
(C) Each electric utility shall
follow and implement the procedures in its emergency plan.
(D) Each electric utility shall review
employee activities to determine whether its procedures in the emergency plan,
as set forth in paragraph (B) of this rule, were effectively
followed.
(E) Each electric utility
shall establish and maintain policy and procedures to train its operating and
emergency response personnel to assure they know and can implement emergency
procedures, as set forth in paragraph (B) of this rule.
(F) Each electric utility shall establish
procedures for analyzing failures of equipment and facilities which result in a
major interruption of service, for the purpose of determining the causes of the
failure and minimizing the possibility of a recurrence. If requested by a hospital that is its customer, an electric
utility shall confer at least biennially with that hospital regarding power
quality issues and concerns related to the utility's facilities, including
voltage sags, spikes, and harmonic disturbances, in an effort to minimize those
events or their impact on the hospital.
(G) At the direction of the commission's
outage coordinator, each electric utility shall submit:
(1) An emergency contact report which shall
contain all of the following information:
(a)
The names, position titles, areas of functional responsibility, business
addresses, e-mail addresses, business telephone numbers, cellular telephone
numbers, and home telephone numbers of at least three individuals who will
serve as emergency contacts.
(b)
Any available emergency hotline number.
(c) The fax number(s) of its emergency
contacts.
(2) A report
confirming that the electric utility has reviewed its emergency plan and, if
applicable, has revised and/or updated the plan, or has established a new plan.
Each electric utility shall also submit all revisions and
updates to its plan or the new plan.
(3) Either of the following:
(a) If the electric utility has not
implemented its emergency plan within the past year, a written statement
attesting to that fact.
(b) If the
electric utility has implemented part or all of its emergency plan within the
past year, a written summary of both of the following:
(i) Any failures of equipment or facilities
that were not the result of a major event and that resulted in a major
interruption of service and the electric utility implementing its emergency
plan.
(ii) The electric utility's
efforts to minimize the possibility of a recurrence of such failures.
(H) Each
electric utility shall promptly notify the commission's outage coordinator of
any change in its emergency contacts.
(I) Each electric utility shall:
(1) Maintain and annually verify and update
its list of critical customers.
(2)
Provide critical customers, within ten business days after acceptance of their
application, with a written statement of their options and responsibilities
during outages, i.e., the need for backup generators, an alternative power
source, or evacuation to another location.
(3) Annually notify customers of its critical
customer program by bill insert or other notice.
(J) Every three years, each electric utility
shall conduct a comprehensive emergency exercise to test and evaluate major
components of its emergency plan and shall invite a cross-section of the
following, or their representatives, to the exercise:
(1) Mayors and other elected
officials.
(2) County/regional
emergency management directors.
(3)
Fire and police departments.
(4)
Community organizations such as the American red cross.
(5) The commission's outage
coordinator.
(K) When an
electric utility has implemented its emergency plan as set forth in paragraph
(A) of this rule in response to a major event, natural disaster, or outage,
that electric utility may request that the commission waive the testing and
evaluation of the emergency plan for the three-year period during which such
implementation occurred. To request a waiver, the electric utility must submit
a report to the commission's outage coordinator detailing:
(1) Its actions in implementing its emergency
plan.
(2) What part of the
emergency exercise the implemented plan replaces.
(3) Why the implementation is an appropriate
replacement for an emergency exercise of all or a portion of the
plan.
(4) The electric utility's
interactions with the persons listed in paragraph (J) of this rule.
(5) Whether the implemented plan indicates
that the electric utility's response to the emergency was sufficient. If the
commission fails to act upon an electric utility's waiver request within sixty
calendar days after such request is submitted to the outage coordinator, the
waiver request shall be deemed to have been granted.
(L) Each electric utility shall coordinate
the implementation of its emergency plan, to the extent that such electric
utility would rely on or require information or assistance during an emergency,
with the following:
(1) Any regional or state
entities with authority, ownership, or control over electric transmission
lines.
(2) Any generation provider
connected to the electric utility's system.
(3) Any other electric utility or
transmission owner with facilities connected to the electric utility.
(M) Each electric utility shall
coordinate the implementation of its emergency plan with local, state, and
regional emergency management organizations.
Effective: 9/7/2017
Five Year Review
(FYR) Dates: 9/30/2019
Promulgated Under:
111.15
Statutory
Authority: 4928.112,
4905.22,
4905.04,
4928.06,
4928.11
Rule
Amplifies: 4905.06,
4905.22,
4905.28,
4928.11
Prior
Effective Dates: 7/1/1999, 9/18/2000, 1/1/2004,
6/26/2009
