Transmission System Vegetation Management

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Reliability Standards

Transmission Vegetation Management

Registered Ballot Body | Related Files | Reliability Standards Home Page | Drafting Team Rosters

Status
FAC-003 was approved by a Ballot Pool on January 27 and approved for adoption by the NERC Board of Trustees on February 7, 2006.

Purpose/Industry Need
This standard shall apply to 200 kV or higher voltage transmission lines (and lower voltage transmission lines determined to be critical to reliability by the Regional Reliability Councils) over which NERC has oversight.

This standard is intended to improve the reliability of the electric transmission systems by eliminating transmission outages from vegetation located on transmission rights-of-way (ROW) and minimizing outages from vegetation located adjacent to ROW, maintaining safe clearances between transmission lines and vegetation on and along transmission rights-of-way, and establishing a system for reporting vegetation-related outages of the transmission systems (+200 kV) to the respective Regional Reliability Councils and NERC.

The August 14, 2003 blackout is the most recent demonstration that ineffective vegetation management may have serious adverse impacts on the reliability of the electric transmission systems. This standard will assist in reducing vegetation-related transmission outages by requiring each transmission owner to have a documented vegetation management program in place, including documentation of its implementation. Each program is to be designed for the geographical area and specific design configurations of the transmission owner’s system. This standard will also provide for uniform reporting of vegetation-related outages to the Regions and to NERC so that Planning Authorities and Reliability Authorities may measure the impact of vegetation-related outages on the reliability of the interconnected electric transmission systems.

Proposed Standard	Comment Period	Comments Received	Response to Comments
Draft 3 Recirculation Ballot January 17-27, 2006 FAC-003-1 - Transmission Vegetation Management Program Implementation Plan		Ballot Results Recirculation Responses to Comments
Draft 3 (Corrected) Initial ballot December 19, 2005 - January 6, 2006 FAC-003-1 - Transmission Vegetation Management Program Implementation Plan		Ballot Results Initial
Draft 3 FAC-003-1 - Transmission Vegetation Management Program FAC-003-1 - Redline Implementation Plan
Draft 2 FAC-003-1 - Transmission Vegetation Management Program Implementation Plan	06/16/05 - 07/31/05	Comments	Response
Draft 1 Proposed Standards for Vegetation Management	01/03/05 - 02/18/05 Executive Summary	Comments	Response
	Drafting Team Nomination Form Due by July 2, 2004
Draft SAR Version 1	05/20/04 - 07/02/04	Comments	Response
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All comments should be forwarded to sarcomm@nerc.net.
Questions? Contact Barbara Bogenrief - barbara.bogenrief@nerc.net or 609-452-8060.