November 17, 2010 1 Consideration of Comments on Initial Ballot of PRC-005-2 – Protection System Maintenance The Protection System Maintenance Standard Drafting Team (PSM SDT) thanks all those who participated in the initial ballot for the proposed revisions to PRC-005 - Protection System Maintenance. • 87.85% quorum • 39.35 % weighted segment approval All comments received with affirmative and negative ballots are included in this report. All balloters are advised to review the comments and responses in this report as an aid in determining how to participate in the recirculation ballot. Both a clean and a redline version of the standard that shows the conforming revisions are posted at the following site: http://www.nerc.com/filez/standards/Protection_System_Maintenance_Project_2007-17.html Many commenters objected to the establishment of maximum allowable intervals and offered comments on virtually every individual activity and interval within the Tables. The SDT responded that “FERC Order 693 and the approved SAR assigned the SDT to develop a Standard with maximum allowable intervals and minimum maintenance activities.” In an effort to provide more clarity, the SDT also completely revised the Tables of maximum maintenance intervals/minimum maintenance activities, and made numerous other changes throughout the draft Standard. Many commenters also indicated a preference for much of the information that is currently contained within the reference documents to be included within the Standard itself. The SDT responded by including the definitions of terms exclusively used within this standard, specifically “component type”, “component”, “segment”, “maintenance correctable issue”, and “countable event”, , within the body of the standard. Numerous comments were also offered, proposing that the VSLs allow for some amount of non-compliance with the Standard before incurring a violation. The SDT responded by stating that: “The NERC criteria for VSLs do not currently permit them to allow some level of non-performance without being in violation.”
