Fed sees EMP as a threat to power infrastructure, but can’t figure out how to prevent it.

While we often worry about maintaining power to our datacenters and plan for the potential impact of power outages and how we will deal with them almost all the plans made by datacenter operators deal with short term power failures. Long-term outages usually fall under the aegis of our disaster recovery / business continuity planning, but even that level of organization operates under the expectation that the national power grid will remain intact.

The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) has, since the establishment of the regulatory oversight explained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, been the agency responsible for the protection of the delivery of reliable bulk energy in the US. This means primarily the backbone of energy providers; they are not tasked with oversight of regional providers.

In a somewhat convoluted process, FERC has designate another group, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to review, propose and approve new and existing standards with the goal of improving the reliability and protecting the bulk power systems within the continental US. They are not responsible for Alaska or Hawaii.

Read more HERE

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About James Smith
James is a father of four and grandfather to four cute little bugs. He and his wife Beautiful Gorgeous, of almost 30 years, have been prepping since 2003.
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