Pennsylvania’s PPL Corp. and The United Illuminating Company of Connecticut have both agreed to use UtilitySafe – a service that facilitates routine workforce, resource and compliance management tasks for the public and commercial utilities industry.
Headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, PPL owns or controls nearly 12,000 MW of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to about 4 million customers in Pennsylvania and the United Kingdom.
The United Illuminating Company is a New Haven-based regional electric distribution company serving more than 324,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the Greater New Haven and Bridgeport Connecticut areas.
Both companies will initially use UtilitySafe to comply with NERCCIP-004, which is a series of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. NERC is a self-regulatory organization, subject to oversight by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and governmental authorities in Canada. Non-compliance with CIP 004 can result in costly fines from NERC as well as trigger potential legal issues should an unfortunate incident were to occur that could have been prevented or minimized via CIP 004 compliance.
Developed by Atlanta-based e-VERIFILE.COM Inc., UtilitySafe helps to minimize liabilities arising from potential legal issues involving negligent hiring, retention, supervision and training. Companies use the system to assign their respective employees, contractors and related personnel (participants) to various compliance programs, which are administered via the system. These participants are issued login credentials to utilitysafe.com to access the system and complete compliance requirements as per their assigned program.
In addition to training and testing, program requirements can include personnel background checks, issuance of Workplace ID Badges and more. The entire process is managed from one web-based platform and all user activities are documented in the system for future compliance audits. The service requires no additional software or equipment and can be securely accessed from any PC.
