Several months ago, Ted Koppel released a book titled, “Lights Out.” I have not yet read the book but I have read the summaries and watched a few interviews with Ted.

Mr. Koppel believes that the national electric grid relies heavily on the internet. Thus, the grid is vulnerable. He sounds the alarm for terrorist-caused outages lasting weeks, months and even years. He believes Homeland Security doesn’t have a plan, nobody is paying attention and the country is woefully unprepared.

Is our national grid vulnerable? Yes, it is as vulnerable as our transportation system, air traffic control and financial networks that we also count on every day to run the U.S. The more we rely on the internet, the more vulnerable we become in all areas.  I don’t believe Mr. Koppel is breaking a big news story here.

I believe Mr. Koppel is inaccurate in his assessments. Protecting the nation’s electric power grid is an industry priority. Daily, utility personnel are monitoring and responding to events big and small on the bulk electric system. Within the industry, there are planning, coordination, response and resiliency activities that consumers and the media don’t see. It’s not a 6 o’clock news story when the system works.

There are mandatory and enforceable cyber security standards for the electric utility industry that other industries simply don’t have. Electric cooperatives and other utilities have willingly worked with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) on developing these standards.

Grid security is serious business and has been for decades. Yes, there have been failures in the past. In 1965, 30 million people were left in the dark for 5 hours. Then, almost 40 years later in 2003, 50 million people were out of power over an 8 state region. The longest outages in 2003 were 4 days in a few areas. Each time the industry learned valuable lessons that are protecting us today.

Electric cooperatives are supporting legislation that encourages voluntary cyber security information sharing between government and industry. We believe such sharing is critical to addressing threats against our national infrastructure (most of which is owned by private companies). The more actionable intelligence we can get our hands on, the more prepared we can become.

Last year, President Obama signed a massive federal highway bill into law. To help the U.S. electric grid respond to attacks both physical and cyber, this law directs the Secretary of Energy to develop a strategic reserve of transmission equipment, large transformers and mobile substations.

Cyber security standards, equipment reserves and information sharing are just a few of the ways the U.S. is preparing for attacks on the electric grid. Mr. Koppel’s claims that nothing is being done are hollow alarms designed to sell more books.

Nobody can promise 100% security. I am by no means claiming that we have nothing to worry about. I am confident that the electric industry has a proven track record of vigilance, diligence and desire to keep “Lights ON.”

Tony Anderson