[UTILITIES] Year 2000 bug could bring chills to utility users
By RICH MILLER
and MARK PERKISS
The Times
May 3, 1998
TRENTON - Imagine for a moment what life would be like without
electricity in the middle of winter.
No lights. No running water. No electric heat. No computers.
Experts on the year 2000 computer problem warn that such a scenario is
possible in January 2000 unless America's electric utilities dramatically
step up their efforts to analyze and fix their automation systems.
There are a wide variety of opinions about the potential impact of the year
2000 problem - known in industry shorthand as "Y2K" - in which a
programming glitch in internal calendars could cause computers to
malfunction or cease operating on Jan. 1, 2000.
Utilities are perhaps the biggest wild card in the Y2K equation because of
American society's reliance upon electric power. A series of new books
and Internet sites are warning that worst-case year 2000 failures could
leave areas of the country without power for days, weeks or even
months.
Such scenarios are not science fiction, according to Rick Cowles, a
Penns Grove resident who is the year 2000 program manager for Digital
Equipment Corp.
"It doesn't take more than one or two small power companies having
significant problems before you will have problems across the entire
grid," said Cowles, a 17-year veteran managing information systems in
electric utilities.
New Jersey's largest utilities agree that the "millennium bug" is a crucial
issue, but say they're confident their systems will be fixed in time.
"I'm optimistic that we're not going to have any sort of major problem,"
said Richard Becker, manager of information technology strategy for
GPU, who is directing the utility's Y2K effort. "Talk to me in another six
months and I'll probably be even more optimistic.
"That doesn't mean this is not an important issue," Becker said. "It's
extremely important. Nobody should be thinking that Y2K is something
small and insignificant. It's something everybody needs to be dealing
with."
Cowles is among a group of year 2000 specialists who say the industry
is behind schedule in its Y2K remediation efforts and that significant
outages are possible unless utilities devote more money and manpower
to the issue, and do so quickly.
"There's a lot of awareness of the year 2000 computer bug and the risk it
represents," said Cowles, who has discussed the issue with utility
executives from around the country. "But there's very little
acknowledgment of the depth of the issue. There's a big difference."
The Electric Power Research Institute, a trade group, is warning its
members to act decisively, saying that failure to address the year 2000
problem could lead to "unprecedented losses in customer services."
While many industries are racing to fix their computer systems, activists
have focused attention on utilities because Y2K-related power failures
could be enormously disruptive, leaving residences and businesses
without light, heat, running water and waste removal.
"The public awareness of the issue is increasing exponentially, day by
day," said Cowles, whose web site (http://www.euy2k.com) contains
extensive information about the challenges. "With that comes more
pressure on electric companies to give an honest accounting of their
preparedness."
State regulators also are seeking answers.
"We have been looking at this issue and have convened an internal board
task force to deal with it," said Geraldine Mehu, a spokeswoman for the
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. Last week the BPU issued a survey
to the state's utilities to "gauge their level of preparedness," said Mehu.
As the century turns The year 2000 computer bug stems from a software
industry practice in which programmers seeking to save costs and
screen space used only two digits to indicate the year, with the computer
assuming the first two digits are "19."
When the numbers "00" appear in the date field on Jan. 1, 2000, the
computer may think the date is Jan. 1, 1900, and information that was
entered just a week earlier may appear to exist 99 years in the future.
Y2K experts say some problems won't be found and fixed, and that some
fixes won't work as designed. The extent of the fallout could vary,
depending upon which companies and agencies experience failures, and
precisely where those failures occur.
Utilities' vulnerability to Y2K-related problems are twofold - they rely
heavily upon microprocessors and are part of an interconnected power
supply system.
Date-sensitive microprocessors, known as embedded systems, are
used to automate the production and distribution of electricity, as well as
some safety systems at nuclear power plants.
"Embedded operating systems are the building blocks used throughout
the power enterprise for energy production, control and distribution,"
according to the EPRI's "Industry Report on Year 2000 Compliance."
"Problems could range from relative nuisances, such as loss of operating
consoles, to very serious system failures," the report said.
Any failures at individual utilities could be magnified by the nature of the
power grid. Electricity is distributed through regional pools that buy and
sell power from dozens of suppliers.
"The problem facing the power industry is unique because of grid
interconnections and links," said the EPRI report. "Any problem in the
chain has the potential to adversely impact all."
"The system is as good as the weakest links," agreed Gene Gorzelnik,
director of communications for the North American Electric Reliability
Council in Plainsboro. "If a single utility had a problem, it probably would
not be significant. You can have a series of problems that by themselves
wouldn't pose a threat but when you put them together could represent a
significant problem.
"Let's say utility A has a problem with a generating station," said
Gorzelnik. "Utility B may have a problem with a transmission line. Utility C
has a problem with a transformer. Each, alone, wouldn't be significant.
When you put together the problems at utility A, B and C, they could all
converge into a much larger problem."
The nature of the Y2K challenge is that any failures are likely to occur
simultaneously. Utilities in each time zone will all "go live" with their
system fixes at the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, 2000.
The NERC was formed in the aftermath of a 1965 blackout in the
northeastern United States to help electric utilities work together to keep
the lights on. Thus far, Gorzelnik said, there's been no definitive analysis
of the industry's Y2K vulnerability.
"It's difficult to establish what the risk level is, because there's no
measure of how far individual utilities have come in eliminating their year
2000 issues," said Gorzelnik. "There's no overall assessment, and there
hasn't been any systematic review of that big picture."
Utilities confident Individual utilities are expressing confidence. Becker
says GPU is between 40 percent and 50 percent complete on fixing its
own Y2K problem.
"On the software side we're mostly testing to make sure that the changes
we've made work," Becker said. "On the equipment side with embedded
chips, we're mostly in the assessment stage to determine the level of
problem we have."
PSE&G expects to have 80 percent of its year 2000 work completed this
year and finish the remainder in the first half of 1999, according to Y2K
project leader Bob Green.
"The larger companies like PSE&G are starting to get a handle on it," said
Cowles. "The second-tier companies and municipal power companies
are really just in the awareness phase.
"The big boys will take care of themselves," he added. "They can throw
hundreds of bodies at the problem as the deadline approaches. For the
smaller outfits, there's not a chance they they'll be able to do that. They
don't have the people or the money."
That could create challenges for the PJM Interconnection, the centralized
power pool in Pennsylvania that serves New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Maryland. PJM's membership includes 96 electric utilities
of all sizes.
"They all send their power to PJM and draw their power from PJM," said
Cowles. "Let's say that PJM was 100 percent prepared and a couple
small providers have a significant problem and throw faults into the
system. It can take everyone else down."
GPU's Becker acknowledged the possibility of systemic year 2000
problems, but said that if there are any, they will be minor. "Everybody in
this industry is well aware of the problems caused by the year 2000 and
they're working together to make sure things run smoothly," he said.
Becker said EPRI has put together a task force of officials from various
utility companies to audit one another to make sure all are year 2000
compliant. However, there is a $75,000 fee to participate.
NERC's Gorzelnik said the 10 regional councils that comprise its
membership haven't finalized plans for a broader monitoring effort.
"For the time being, that's something that has been left to each individual
utility," said Gorzelnik. "There's discussion that NERC should become
involved in that, but we're waiting for some decisions."
Awareness heightened The concerns about the potential for power
failures come as awareness of the year 2000 problem is growing. In the
past month, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Intel Corp. Chairman Andy
Grove and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger have all
called for intensified efforts to avert Y2K-related disruptions.
Other business leaders remain dismissive of the problem. Last week,
Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg Financial Systems said the year 2000
problems will amount to no more than "a day off from school for your
kids."
Bloomberg's statements drew criticism from Grace Polhemus, president
of Technology New Jersey, a West Windsor group promoting high-tech in
the state. Polhemus says the biggest Y2K problem is that many
companies and governments in New Jersey are not taking the issue
seriously.
"Many businesses, especially small businesses, say they've heard of the
problem but feel it really won't affect them," Polhemus said. "They're not
preparing themselves to deal with the issue. Some think it's all hype or
it's being touted by people in order for them to make a lot of money."
To educate large and small companies, as well as governmental entities,
Technology New Jersey has set up Task Force 2000, a collection of
companies, law firms and experts who have pledged to help businesses
prepare for the millennium.
"What we want to do is to educate," Polhemus said. "Companies need to
realize that this is serious and everyone will be affected."
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