News from EPRI electrical power conference
This is very optimistic thread on comp.software.year-2000. Posts from two key players are included. Fred Swirlbil and Rick Cowles do not appear to be engaging in denial. (Their warnings are bolded to indicate this)
Personal Note -- Reports like these lead me to think that Y2K will likely cause a major market crash, economic recession /depression but not the collapse of western civilization. I believe that the fallout from a partial electrical supply and grid failure is shutdown of heavy industrial consumers. It's not as catastrophic as total blackout, but should certainly aggrivate any Y2K recession.
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From: Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
Subject: Electric Utilities - The power will be there
Date: Sat, 09 May 1998 04:50:52 GMT
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
Utility Y2K Engineer - but not representing my employer.
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From: Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
Subject: Re: Electric Utilities - The power will be there
Date: Sat, 09 May 1998 20:35:24 GMT
In article <3559fb8d.8670627@enews.newsguy.com>,
rcowles@waterw.com (Rick Cowles) wrote:
>On Sat, 09 May 1998 04:50:52 GMT, Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com>
>wrote:
>
[ requoted material snipped]
>Was PJM, NYPP, NERC, or any of the other regional power pool operators
>present?
No. There were a number of unoffical meetings outside of the official
conference, as well as some "recognized" break out sessions with nuclear owners group, and a few vendors.
EPRI is concentrating on two main areas. Sharing information with in the groups members, and formulating test teams, that go to a specific vendor, review their testing programs, and help guide them to providing valid test results, typically on the vendors own web pages. At least this way there is some spin off of valid info to those who aren't paying up the $75K.
[ requoted stuff on fatal failures snipped ]
>This doesn't surprise me. As with Harlan, all along, it's been pretty
>clear that problems at a 'chip level' are going to be in a teensy minority.
>The problem with 'bad dates' at that level are probably not going to be
>seen at that level, but as is typical with bad data, at a higher level in
>the control system (say, level 2 or 2.5). I've never really expected to
>see anything at ISA level 0 freezing anything up.
>
[ requoted stuff snipped ]
>Taking the above at face value (for the sake of argument), one in 10
>plants dropping out on a regional distribution system with, say, 200 plants
>is 20 plants down simultaneously. That's way more than enough to
>introduce enough voltage and frequency disturbances in the distribution
>system to cause wild and crazy things to happen (ass/u/me that the regional
>grid is totally Y2k ready with no problems to begin with).
Agreed. It was much less than that level of disturbance that caused the August
1996 western grid problem. About 50% of the Western 14 states populations
were out of power for many hours.
>>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.
>
>It's a matter of orders of magnitude, Fred. By your count, 75 *of the most
>Y2k enlightened power companies* out of 9000 in the U.S. were at the
>conference. I'm still preaching *awareness* to the other 8925. NERC is
>just warming up to the issue. Regional system operators aren't in the game
>yet. Please help me out - why should I feel any better today than I did
>yesterday?
We aren't out of the woods yet, but I think it is some positive news.
Remember that these 75 or so mostly represent the biggest players. Wild
guess, but call it 1/2 of the US generating capacity (do you have a better
sources for numbers? I have the list of member utilities.)
I many ways, many people still need to be scared by Y2K to ensure that
the right things will get done. You tend to concentrate on the awareness
in a responsible way, others are the fear mongers, which a little bit is
not bad.
Fred Swirbul
>--
>Rick Cowles (Public PGP key on request)
>
>Now Shipping From AMAZON.COM: "Electric Utilities and Y2k" - The Book
>http://www.euy2k.com/book.htm
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From: rcowles@waterw.com (Rick Cowles)
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
Subject: Re: Electric Utilities - The power will be there
Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 11:55:09 -0400
On Sun, 10 May 1998 11:23:14 -0400, SAG
<stephen.and.marilyn.goldstein@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> Taking the above at face value (for the sake of argument), one in 10
>> plants dropping out on a regional distribution system with, say, 200 plants
>> is 20 plants down simultaneously. That's way more than enough to
>> introduce enough voltage and frequency disturbances in the distribution
>> system to cause wild and crazy things to happen (ass/u/me that the regional
>> grid is totally Y2k ready with no problems to begin with).
>
>True. But this worry also suggests an operating strategy that can be
>employed around "midnight" to reduce the risk/impact of large transients
>on "the grid." Remember, December 31, 1999 is a Friday. Winter.
>Holiday weekend. My company is summer-peaking so load, at "midnight,"
>will be about 1/4 of our net capability. YMMV.
>
>Our Reliability Council operating rules requires "spinning reserve" to
>handle the loss of the largest unit -- though other areas have different
>protocols. Point is that the risk you mention can be mitigated by
>deliberately and maintaining *excess* spinning reserve.
>
>Thus, by keeping all available units on-line, with a good distribution
>of load among them, loss of 10% of the units can, I'll bet, be
>tolerated. Of course, I have to leave it to the engineers to perform
>the studies -- and will suggest this approach next week (also bet that
>they've already done the work and have a plan).
>
Great followup! And who says there's nothing but noise in csy2k?
If people like Fred and Stephen can take this kind of dialog back to their
companies and working groups, and use this intel as part of larger scale
contingency planning / testing, we're all the better for it. It doesn't
necessarily mitigate the large scope of the issue, but it's another (albeit
small) piece of the puzzle.
--
Rick Cowles (Public PGP key on request)
Now Shipping From AMAZON.COM: "Electric Utilities and Y2k" - The Book
euy2k.com |
