Unprecidented Change
The North American Electricity Industry is in the midst of two major changes. These changes to the industry have created a gap in experienced power system professionals and have created a unique opportunity for qualified consultants. 

First, the electricity industry is restructuring to implement competitive electricity markets. This restructuring is in various stages across North America and has resulted in the need for expertise in the development and implementation of electricity markets. These markets range from complex multi-day financially binding mechanisms to simple financial hedging mechanisms.

Second, The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) was certified as the electric reliability organization by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on July 20, 2006. NERC was charged with developing and enforcing compliance to the planning and operating rules that electric utilities follow to ensure the most reliable system possible (Reliability Standards). The first set of these standards became mandatory and enforceable on June 18, 2007. 

Impact on the Industry
All bulk power system owners, operators, and users must comply with approved NERC Reliability Standards.  These entities are required to register with NERC through the appropriate regional entity. There are several thousand registered entities to date and all will be subject to compliance audits on a three or six year cycle.

NERC relies on the regional entities to enforce the NERC standards with bulk power system owners, operators, and users through approved delegation agreements.  NERC works withthe eight regional entities to improve the reliability of the bulk power system. The members of the regional entities come from all segments of the electric industry: investor-owned utilities; federal power agencies; rural electric cooperatives; state, municipal and provincial utilities; independent power producers; power marketers; and end-use customers. These entities account for virtually all the electricity supplied in the United States, Canada, and a portion of Baja California, Mexico.   

Key Market Segments
Global Energy Consulting is positioned to provide consulting services in three different segments of the North American Electricity Sector:

1. Compliance - readiness, monitoring/audit and Pre-readiness evaluations
2. Electricity markets - development and implementation
3. Power System Operations and Planning - operator training and certification, control room tool development and implementation

Consulting opportunities in the Electricity Sector can generally be grouped into one of three major categories: compliance audits, compliance readiness, compliance violation mitigation plans and readiness evaluations; operations training and certification; market development and implementation.

By far, the two largest market segments are compliance and market development. In terms of consulting opportunities, the key market segments are operating entities and Regional Entities. Compliance audits are in their fledgling stages with the first entities being audited in late 2007. With thousands of registered entities in North America it will present new opportunities for consultants with expertise in this area.   

First, the electricity industry is restructuring to implement competitive electricity markets. This restructuring is in various stages across North America and has resulted in the need for expertise in the development and implementation of electricity markets. These markets range from complex multi-day financially binding mechanisms to simple financial hedging mechanisms. As a result of this restructuring, consultants with experience in market development and implementation are in scarce supply.

Second, The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) was certified as the electric reliability organization by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on July 20, 2006. They were charged with developing and enforcing compliance to the planning and operating rules that electric utilities follow to ensure the most reliable system possible (Reliability Standards). The first set of these standards became mandatory and enforceable on June 18, 2007.  This has created an opportunity for consultants in both preparing registered entities for audits and in administering compliance audits.