Here are some maps that describe the national power grid:

http://www.yardeni.com/public/nerccht.pdf (shows how grids are connected) http://www.nerc.com/regional/ (shows the regional councils)

I asked the Y2K ISO person at ERCOT (Texas' Power Council) some questions:

Should I buy a generator? Is the ERCOT grid going to stay up?

"I'm not buying one. I think the ERCOT grid will stay up."

Could the Texas grid operate if the Nukes were taken off-line?

"ERCOT has a total of 5000 MegaWatt nuclear generation capacity. The expected peak load on Jan. 1, 2000 is in the 17,000 - 26,000 MW range (depending on weather and hour of day). ERCOT has a total generation capacity of about 56,000 MW. Losing the Nukes would leave 51,000 MW of capacity to serve a 26,000 MW load."

He was very pleasant and helpful.

At any rate, the sloppy math seems to say that Texas could lose possibly 1/3 of generating capacity and still make the demand.

Of course, distribution is still in question, but I'd say that if you were going to research the likelihood of your area losing power, start out with your NERC regional council and work down from there. These people have a birds-eye view of the situation.

Which is not to say that power would STAY up, in light of the rest of the Y2K logistics problems.

-- Lisa (nomail@work.com), December 17, 1998

Answers

That far south, the peak loads occur in summer time with air conditioning.

Distribution is the key. In Texas, that's from the LCRA, the HPL (HLP ?) San Antonio City Public Service, etc. Check with those guys next.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 17, 1998.

Lisa, thanks for the links, I'm going to check them out later. Would you e-mail me privately and let me know where abouts in Texas you are? We might be "neighbors"!!

I found this website for Liberty Texas (I live in the county) & it had some very interesting documents from Sam Rayburn Municipal Power Agency, from Entergy, from the Department of Energy (Southwestern) & independent verification of compliancy for Sam Rayburn Municipal Power Agency. Would really appreciate knowing what everyone thinks about this information. Thanks, Donna www.libertytoday.com/y2k_for_liberty.htm

-- Donna in Texas (Dd0143@aol.com), December 17, 1998.

Lisa, The situation you describe where the power company disconnects from the grid is called islanding. It has been discussed previously in at least one other thread.

I spoke to the public relations guy from Idaho power, and he told me that "islanding" was possible and would take about 3 days to do so. I then talked and e-mailed the "pointman" for y2k from Idaho Power. I asked specifically that, since they are a producer, would they disconnect, and supply power to their users. Here is an excerpt from his e-mail he sent me:

"Mr. ***** (the public relations guy) was describing something called 'islanding.' While technically, it is possible to island, it is a technique we try very hard to avoid. Islanding is a very foreign mode of operation and as such, is very risky. It also places the rest of the western United States at risk. Furthermore, NERC has stated that islanding, for these and other reasons, is not an acceptable contingency plan for electric utilities except in a few, rare circumstances."

Although, I should have followed up and asked what the few and rare circumstances are, I did not. I basically took this to mean that I better plan on alternative energy to survive. My gut instinct is that they will probably island after a few days (weeks?). The employees of Idaho power are also customers, and unless they are prepared, I think they will do what it takes to get power online.

You might want to ask your y2k ISO if it is realistic for them to island.

Bill

-- Bill S. (Bill_S3@juno.com), December 18, 1998.

Yes, most areas have excess generating capacity. Think for a minute - Southern Cal and New York have exported their pollution to the rest of the country by closing down power plants - and they drink more power than anyone else. Of course almost everyone else has excess capacity over the local load - we're feeding these guys. And that isn't counting the extra 20-30% on top of that to allow for maintainence down time. So except for NYC and Southern CA we should mostly have enough power. (Now since those just happen to be the places where the national news shows are produced there are going to be some extreme stories about how NO ONE has power - sent out to everyone who has power of course! :) )

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 18, 1998.