NERC's major responsibilities include working with all stakeholders to develop standards for power system operation, monitoring and enforcing compliance with those standards, assessing resource adequacy, and providing educational and training resources as part of an accreditation program to ensure power system operators remain qualified and proficient.

NERC also investigates and analyzes the causes of significant power system disturbances in order to help prevent future events.

In 2000, NERC established the Electricity Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which provides industry with timely responses and alerts on cyber and physical security threats that have the potential to impact the bulk power system.

In August 2003, North America experienced its worst blackout to date, as 50 million people lost power in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario, Canada.

The E-ISAC, through capabilities including its Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program (CRISP), works with critical asset owners and operators to analyze real-time cyber and physical security data for patterns of incidents with the potential to affect the bulk power system.

In September 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and NERC opened a joint investigation into a "winter load event" earlier in January that stressed the electrical grids in the Midwest.