"Electrical Power Grid Forum", Wash DC, 10/1/1998
asked in the TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Q&A Forum
Last night, George Washington University sponsored a
forum addressing electric utility issues, with emphasis on
the Washington, D.C. area (e.g., one of the industry reps
with PEPCO). Since this event was literally hosted by The
Washington Post, in fact in their very headquarters in
D.C., I am going to hope that this will get reported in the
newspapers. But I thought that a brief sketch of what was
said would be worth kicking off a thread. (I'll try to be
real objective on what follows, and follow up with my
opinions if the thread goes anywhere.)
................................................................ There were 4
panelists: 2 industry reps (1 PEPCO), 1 "independent"
consultant to the industry, and 1 financial investment
consultant for Y2K issues. Basically, the first 3 more or
less stood by the recent NERC report's "cautious
optimism", and said that the industry was working very
hard, and the most encouraging news that they had was
that so far it looked like, on the basis of what had been
checked, Y2K problems were not as prevalent as
originally anticipated. There was a lot of insistence that
things could be done manually if need be, and that
contingency plans were being made (for instance, PEPCO
is coal-fired, and plans to stockpile 3 months worth of
coal for 1/1/2000). Testing is planned, with planned
outages for PEPCO this Spring to accomodate the testing.
The biggest worry from the industry's point of view is third
party suppliers, and whether they are Y2K compliant --
especially telecommunications, as without telecomm, they
are effectively shutdown. Likewise (and I had not heard
this before), since maintaining electric power is such a
delicate balancing act, a large consumer of electric power
that suddenly ceased due to Y2K problems might be
enough to bring down the show! The position was taken
that it is too late to change any of the structure -- i.e., too
late for government intervention, they know what to do,
let them do it. And, for instance, PEPCO has already
informed its employees that no vacation will be permitted
from late Dec 1999 to early Jan 2000, so eveyone can be
"on call" if need be.
................................................................ The invester
broke from the ranks quite a bit, and said that the NERC
report's cautiously-optimistic conclusions were not based
on the data that they presented. Furthermore, that data
was severely aggregated so as to make it impossible to
actually glean who was actually doing what where. There
are numerous serious questions regarding how and under
what circumstances the grid will go down. Since the
numerous, multiple failures that Y2K could bring have
never occured, it is anyones guess as to what the effects
would be. (He warmed to the audience when he said that
he had 80 year old parents in Chicago, and that he was
worried.) ................................................................ The
moderator from GWU then offered his assessment, and
got a big round of applause when he said that he thought
that the optimisim being displayed could only be obtained
by looking at individual "pieces" of the Y2K pie. When
one looks at the whole picture, and sees the tremendous
number of interdependencies, there is no such
reasonableness to the optimism.
................................................................ Many
comments/questions from the audience were entertained.
A long sustained applause followed from the
comment/question that was to the effect that there was
clearly a "disconnect" between what the industry reps
were stating, and what was independently being
ascertained in the way of many, many Y2K problems that
are known, and that the industry is not giving people the
truthful answers that they need. The response, as near as I
could figure, was to blame the lawyers for not allowing the
industry reps to share the news that they wanted to.
................................................................ Ok, thats
about as objective a summary as I can do. And when/if
there is a newspaper write-up, we should post the URLs
in this thread.
Asked by Joe (shar@pei.com) on October 02, 1998.
Answers
Very good Joe, thanks for the report.
An interesting side note about PEPCO. They have formed
a new company called Starpower with website
starpower.net. They are wiring the entire Washington
Metro area with fiber optics cables and will be competing
directly with Bell Atlantic for phone service and internet
access. Also, some parts of the area, not DC yet, will be
able to get cable TV through the same fiber optic cable.
I've checked on availability for my house. The phone and
internet is available now. I wonder if they will be using this
new infrastructure for their own telecommunications. Any
mention of that at the meeting?
Answered by Beltway Buddy (buddy@bellatlantic.net) on October 02,
1998.
No, gosh, based on what was said at the meeting, I was
definitely given the impression that every single PEPCO
employee was slaving away at the grindstone fighting the
Y2K good fight, with hardly a thought towards
themselves, much less any other endeavors. [NOTE: My
Objectivity Oath terminated when I finished posting the
thread kick-off question. In fact, were it not for my Oath,
I would have titled this thread something like "Its Back To
The Caves, Baby!"] I wish that someone in the audience
had raised the question, it would have been interesting to
see how the PEPCO rep would have handled it.
Answered by Joe (shar@pei.com) on October 02, 1998.
Timely! Another review of the NERC report appeared
yesterday http://
www.y2ktoday.com/modules/home/default.asp?id=372&feature=&type=
Answered by Joe (shar@pei.com) on October 02, 1998.
A few months ago, Pepco had a one page website. They
have progressed to an updated version which says the
same about Y2K as the old one. Nothing! They are more
interested in deregulation and their ability to maintain
profits while their monopoly is being dismembered than
posting the teeniest little bit of info on the most important
facet of the utility business. www.pepco.com.
Bethesda Mike
Answered by Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com) on October 02, 1998. |
