Organizations tout new energy security partnership
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) has partnered with the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC) to bolster energy security.
Officials said the effort would enhance cross-sector coordination and take advantage of the interdependencies of the electricity and water industries.
“Water is one of the lifeline critical infrastructures that depends on and helps enable a secure, reliable supply of electricity,” Bill Lawrence, NERC vice president and chief security officer, said. “Partnering with WaterISAC will help strengthen E-ISAC collaboration across industry sectors in a way that better serves all critical infrastructures in North America.”
The collaboration would involve WaterISAC staff joining the E-ISAC in Washington, D.C., to improve coordination on potential security risks related to the supply of electricity to water and wastewater treatment plants, and the supply of water to electric utilities for cooling power plant turbines and for office operations.
“The water and electricity sectors are critical to the well-being of consumers and businesses,” Michael Arceneaux, managing director of WaterISAC, said. “Our joint collaboration recognizes this responsibility as well as the interdependencies between our sectors, and it aims to help our respective members enhance their security and preparedness.”
Partnership goals include improving security collaboration on common threat information and incident response, joint analysis of security concerns and events, advance shared processes for information sharing and situational awareness, and improved information sharing among all ISACs.
