Rule 4901:1-10-08 | Electric utility emergency plans and coordination for restoration of electric service.
(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:
(1) A table of contents.
(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.
(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 and utilizing crews from other electric transmission owners and/or distribution utilities.
(8) Procedures for prompt identification of outage areas, timely assessment of damage, and provision of time necessary for restoral of service.
(9) The 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.
(10) The procedures for providing outage response and restoration of service updates.
(11) The procedures to verify that service has been restored in each outage area.
(12) The procedures for providing maximum outage response, seeking outside assistance, and restoring service in a worst case outage scenario, i.e., "a major event."
(13) The procedures to provide supervisors who are responsible for emergency response a copy of the latest edition of the emergency plan.
(14) The 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.
(15) 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.
(e) Procedures to address personal protection initiatives.
(f) Procedures to maintain lines of communication with the commission during a declared emergency.
(16) 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 procedures to train its operating and emergency response personnel to assure they 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.
(2) A report confirming that the electric utility has reviewed its emergency plan and, if applicable, has revised and/or updated the 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 necessary stakeholders to the exercise.
(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 will 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.
Last updated April 8, 2024 at 8:30 AM
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