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Harlan Smith: Potential Solutions for Electric Power Grid Problems
asked in the Electric Utilities and Y2K Q&A Forum
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Thread posted on Y2K Today (www.y2ktoday.com)by Harlan Smith:
Potential Solutions for Electric Power Grid Problems
- There seems to be considerable worry that the power grid or elements thereof will crash at rollover to Year 2000, when a spike of embedded systems problems is expected.
- Although electricity transmission, distribution and generation can all be potentially affected by "embedded systems" computer code containing Y2K flaws, the dominant worry seems to relate to generating station failure.
- From the above, it may be concluded that the risk to the grid at the exact time of rollover is that a significant number of generating stations will go off line at the time of rollover to create a disparity between generating capacity and load demands. Indeed, to counter this worry, it is understood that 70 generating stations are now running with advanced clocks to prove that they will not fail at rollover or thereafter.
- If a large "spinning reserve" could be maintained at rollover, and in the hours, days and weeks following, the risk to the integrity and stability of the power grid would be greatly reduced.
- A simple expedient for creating this "spinning reserve" would be to greatly reduce load. This could be accomplished by a pre-arranged shedding of commercial loads just prior to rollover. The expectation would be that these loads would be put back on line in hours, days or weeks after the rollover, when confidence was established that sufficient generating capacity survived the expected spike of "embedded systems" failures to continue to maintain a large "spinning reserve".
- I have not seen any promotion of such a plan in any of the writings of NERC, EPRI, Rick Cowles, Dick Mills, Roleigh Martin or any of those we rely on for information about the Y2K status of the electric power industry. I hope that they respond with their comments about use of such a simple expedient.
It is conceivable that we will have a shortfall of generating capacity, that may persist for some extended period after the "embedded systems" spike of failures at rollover. Or, it may surface later in the year when aggregate load increases due to summer A/C. But what I propose might do much to counter the worry that the power grid will crash exactly at time of rollover.
Harlan Smith
-- Critt Jarvis (critt@critt.com), December 28, 1998
Answers
The dominant concern is NOT generation - it's transmission. If you can't get power from point A to point B, it doesn't matter if it can be generated or not. But even if an electric company can't make power because its plants aren't working, electricity can be imported from somewhere else as long as the transmission network is operating.
-- Rick Cowles (rcowles@waterw.com), December 29, 1998.
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Critt, I have read a few other suggestions along the line of what Harlan is proposing. The biggest problem given alongside those suggestions is that a pre-arranged load shedding would require a great deal of prior organization and cooperation between commercial users and utilities on a regional/national level. (And we all know how wonderfully entities are cooperating with information and planning now, don't we?)
Also, there is a confirmation of Rick's analysis re transmission at:
puc.state.tx.us
The article is from the Texas State Public Utilities Commission and the link is compliments of Gary North's site. Some of the pertinent info on transmission follows:
"Transmission lines tie together the generating stations and primary substations where the voltage is reduced to a lower level, which is usable by more customers. The transmission network permits the delivery of power within regions during normal conditions, and the transfer of power between regions during emergencies.
A major disadvantage to interconnection of transmission systems is that problems on one system can ripple through and impact other transmission systems. Since large quantities of electricity cannot be stored, and supply must always instantaneously meet demand, a high degree of coordination is required. This coordination is often accomplished with SCADA equipment. (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). Supervisory control permits an operator at a central location to operate devices remotely and monitor the results.
A SCADA system also automatically collects data from substations and generating stations. This data may include line loads, voltage, transformer power levels, breaker status and other information relating to the safe operation of equipment at substations, switching yards and other locations. This data can be stored in the computer to provide complete logs of the operation and status of the system. These logs can then be used by engineers to evaluate the performance of the system.
The transmission system is the key to the operation of any electric utility. Without a reliable transmission system, it won't matter whether all the power plants are operating. All the major blackouts in Texas have been caused by problems with transmission lines, not problems with the plants." ***
It's interesting that on the 12/9/1998 NERC Readiness Assessment Report which Rick mentioned in another recent thread, the section on the "mission critical" status of EMS/SCADA had 175 respondents to the survey, with the following tabulated results:
Inventory for 7 mission critical areas in the EMS/SCADA systems for those 175 ranged from 97 to 100% complete.
Assessment of the same areas ranged from 76 to 86% complete.
Remediation of the same areas ranged from 42% to 57% complete.
I also can't resist pointing out that of 195 responses tabulated for the OVERALL Y2K readiness on this same survey the Average Percent Completed as of 12/9/1998 indicated Inventory at 96%, Assessment at 82%, and Remediation/Testing at 44%. After reading all the various aspects of this whole survey, it's my opinion that public concerns about Year 2000 problems in the electric utility industry are absolutely valid, and it is certainly prudent to prepare for possible outages. I'm personally past the point of caring whether I'm called "crazy" for making preparations or not. I base my actions on the available information I can access, and in my view the facts support the wisdom of preparing.
(And yes, Critt, I AM traveling with my husband and we WILL be on vacation after tomorrow - assuming the manufacturing system implementation he's nursing along right now will not do something unexpectedly horrible. I can't access my e-mail yet, and I hate using this laptop, but at least I can still read and learn! Happy New Year to all and may it be a productive one!)
-- Bonnie Camp (bonniec@mail.odyssey.net), December 29, 1998.
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