Your guide up the mountain of NERC compliance — and a live resource hub. Scope which standards bind you, walk the registration pathway through your Regional Entity, layer in the Texas PUCT and ERCOT requirements, and jump straight to the authoritative source documents when you need them.
Every NERC program moves through the same six stages. Each stage's output is the next stage's input — skip one and the route collapses under audit. Click a stage to open its objective, actions, deliverable, and the audit risk it manages. Check off actions as you climb; your progress is tracked for this session.
Registration runs through the ERO Enterprise — you file in NERC's CORES (Centralized Organization Registration ERO System), and your Regional Entity reviews it and issues your Notice of Registration. Here's the pathway, with the actual portals and documents linked at each step. Confirm current specifics with your Regional Entity — process details evolve.
Confirm which functional entities apply to you (scope them in Section 03) and whether you meet the ERO Enterprise registration criteria — including the IBR criteria if you're a solar/wind/storage resource.
Set up access to the ERO Portal, the gateway to CORES and your compliance workflow.
File your organization registration through the Centralized Organization Registration ERO System, selecting the functions you perform.
Your Regional Entity reviews the submission and issues the Notice of Registration (NOR) establishing your registered functions and effective date. Find your Regional Entity below.
Complete entity onboarding — primary compliance contacts, self-certification setup, portal access, and the welcome materials your RE provides.
Begin your obligations — applicability, controls, evidence, and RSAWs. Sections 03–04 and the six-stage route above carry you from here to sustained compliance.
NERC delegates monitoring and enforcement to six Regional Entities. Yours is determined by where your facilities sit — if you're in ERCOT / most of Texas, that's Texas RE. Click your Regional Entity to mark it as yours, then open its registration page.
Your registered functions define your universe of obligations. Select every function your entity is registered for on the NERC Compliance Registry. The Sherpa surfaces the standard families that commonly carry obligations for those functions — the starting point for a requirement-level applicability matrix.
Retired via Risk-Based Registration (2015 onward): Purchasing-Selling Entity (PSE), Interchange Authority (IA), and Load-Serving Entity (LSE) are no longer independently registered functions. If a legacy document references them, confirm current status before relying on it.
The full family-to-function view. A marked cell means the family commonly carries obligations for that function — applicability is ultimately per requirement, so confirm each standard's Section 4 (Applicability). Your currently selected functions are highlighted in amber. Click any family name for detail.
In Texas, NERC reliability compliance is only one of three layers. The PUCT sets the state regulatory rules, ERCOT runs the grid and market you register into, and Texas RE (Section 02) enforces the NERC standards. A resource in ERCOT answers to all three — here's the state-and-market side, with the rules and portals linked.
The state regulator for Texas electric utilities and the retail market. Its substantive rules for electric service live in 16 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 25 — the enforceable state rulebook alongside your NERC obligations. The PUCT also has jurisdiction over ERCOT.
The independent system operator and market for most of Texas. To generate or sell into ERCOT you register as a Resource Entity (and typically operate under a Qualified Scheduling Entity), governed by the ERCOT Nodal Protocols. Note the split: ERCOT is the market/grid operator — your NERC compliance still runs through Texas RE.
Guidance the Sherpa gives on the stretches where footing is worst — the DG/renewables and inverter-based-resource lane, the recurring audit findings, and the evidence discipline that separates a compliant program from a demonstrably compliant one.
Inverter-based resources changed the map. Registration thresholds and dedicated IBR standards are an active, moving area at NERC and FERC.
The same failure modes surface across regions year after year:
Compliance without evidence is fiction. For every applicable requirement, hold the answer to three questions:
A requirement with no evidence path is a gap to flag now, not a row to leave blank until the auditor finds it.
Elite programs pre-empt the question the auditor will ask. For each high-risk requirement, write down the question and confirm the current evidence answers it.
Every authoritative source this Sherpa points to, in one place. These are the primary portals, rulebooks, and document libraries — go here to register, pull a standard or RSAW, read the enforceable rule text, or check a filing. All links open the official site in a new tab.
Links point to official NERC, Regional Entity, PUCT, ERCOT, and federal sources. URLs and document versions change — if a link moves, search the host site. Nothing here replaces the enforceable rule text or your Regional Entity's guidance.
The Sherpa scopes your applicability for free. When you're ready to go deeper — requirement-level matrices, RSAW narratives, evidence mapping, or audit defense — Energy Compliance builds the program behind it. Start with a no-cost scoping session; bring your registered functions and we'll map the route.