You may have heard of the NERC CIP—the North American Reliability Corporation’s Critical Infrastructure Plan—if you work in the electric industry. The NERC is the group that protects and regulates this industry, and the CIP are the regulations they enforce to accomplish this safety. If you want to learn more about what NERC CIP is and why it’s important for safety, read ahead.

A Regulatory Group

The NERC started as a small group of owners who came together and made some voluntary rules to help regulate electricity production. Eventually, electricity became so vital to America that the government empowered the NERC to write and create mandatory rules—the CIP—to protect the nation’s electricity. There’s a lot more to the history of the NERC CIP, but these are the basics you need to know.

Vital Infrastructure

The majority of NERC CIP focuses on identifying and protecting any vital infrastructures upon which people rely. This includes places like power plants and power stations, which help distribute energy to millions of homes. The NERC monitors these locations and enforces rules to prevent both natural and unnatural disasters.

Physical Protection

A lot of the NERC regulations concern the physical protection of vital infrastructure. This includes regulations that address who can access the systems and how a power station needs to work to prevent issues with blackouts. There’s also the need for protection against terrorist attacks.

Digital Protection

Protecting vital infrastructure from digital threats is a more recent development, as more systems use the internet for important business. This protection usually means that places need to record who accesses which systems and how to prevent cyber-attacks, but it also includes things like background checks through E-Verify services.

As you can see, NERC CIP is very important to the protection of electricity across America and prevents massive blackouts across the nation. That is the answer to what NERC CIP is and why it’s important for safety.