[EPRI] Fred Swirbul visited recent EPRI comments; Harlans reaction to it
'I just returned from a Y2K conference sponsored by the
Electric Power Research Group (EPRI). Held in Dallas, Texas.
Over 75 organizations were represented, mostly electric utilities.
Other organizations are allowed to join EPRI's Y2K project
(at $75K each). Oil and gas processors/refineries were the
second largest group represented.
Like anything else, there was both good news, and bad news.
Good news/bad news. Most everyone had completed or was close to
completing their initial assessments, and some preliminary testing
has been accomplished by most organizations. Unfortunately, only
about 10% of the organizations had completed significant portions
of their testing.
Bad news/good news. Of those organizations that had completed
significant testing, they were finding failure rates in the 10%
range. The good news is that for embedded COMPONENTS, not a
single "fatal" failure was found. Zip. Zero. Nada. I am calling
anything with less computing power than a PLC (programable logic
controller) an embedded component. Yes, the dates might be wrong,
but the smart field transmitters still measured properly, the digital
trend recorders still plotted trends, and the digital meters still
displayed correct numbers (except for the date). Nothing at this
level just froze up, so far.
It is starting to appear that it takes a fairly high level embedded
SYSTEM to really screw up and lock up. A DCS (Digital Control
System) or DAS (Data Aquisition System) can possibly fail in
this manner. Even if 50% of all high level digital sytems have a
Y2K problem (ie one of their many components is not Y2K compliant),
it is starting to look like only one in ten will fail so bad as to
trip a plant, whether it is a eletric plant or a refinery.
While the facts are just starting to come in, this seems to mean that
most electric plants will only have a few systems that must be fixed
before 12/31/99, so that they can still keep on producing power. IMHO,
this does not appear to be insurmountable. If the Y2K problem is going
to cause world wide hardships, it will happen with (most) of the lights on.
Fred Swirbul
Subject:
Electric Utilities - The power will be there
Date:
Sat, 09 May 1998 04:50:52 GMT
From:
Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com>
Organization:
Netcom
Newsgroups:
comp.software.year-2000
________
Reaction from Harlan Smith:
'Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<6j0n76$6l@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>...
Good report, Thanks. Some questions and comments.
C1 - The data presented seems to agree with what you appear to have been
saying all along, that the problems will occur in devices with complexity
of PLCs and above, thereby implying that there will be thousands of
corrections to be made, rather than millions.
C2 - Even so, as Rick says, it doesn't take very many failures to disrupt
the power grid and only a small percentage of the 9,000 utilties were
represented at the EEPRI conference although I presume a much larger
percentage of generating capacity.
C3 - "Unfortunately, only about 10% of the organizations had completed
significant portions of their testing." What do they need to accelerate
this this testing? If you will pardon the expression, it's getting pretty
late in the game to be "in the dark" about the nature and scope of the
problem.
Q! - Are all people attending the conference planning to do advanced clock
testing at each generating station?
Q2 - Are the majority of the nuclear power people optimistic about
completing remediation per the NRC time table?
Subject:
Re: Electric Utilities - The power will be there
Date:
09 May 1998 05:08:25 EDT
From:
"Harlan Smith" <hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com>
Organization:
Paperless
Newsgroups:
comp.software.year-2000
References:
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