STEP represents a coordinated approach to increasing the utility industry's inventory of spare transformers and streamlining the process of transferring those transformers to affected utilities in the event of a transmission outage caused by a terrorist attack.
"Federal support for this program is critical,” says Jim Fama, director for energy delivery for the Edison Electric Institute. “We applaud the Commission's leadership in acting quickly and decisively to support STEP."
Under the program, each participating utility is required to maintain and, if necessary, acquire a specific number of transformers. STEP requires each participating utility to sell its spare transformers to any other participating utility that suffers a "triggering event," defined as an act of terrorism that destroys or disables one or more substations and results in the declared state of emergency by the President of the United States.
Any investor-owned, government-owned or rural electric cooperative utility in the United States or Canada may participate in the program, and currently 47 utilities, representing more than 60 percent of the FERC-jurisidictional transmission system, are members.
