I talked to a friend who works at a power company in Florida yesterday. He is on the Contingency Planning Committee for y2k at the power company. He said electricity throughout the nation looks pretty good for the year 2000. There will be minor shortages at first, but nothing like week long or longer, electricity disruptions. NERC has put out a press release of their readiness at

ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/pressrel/y2kpressrelease.pdf

It says in part that 'computer problems found thus far, do not appear likely to threaten electricity supplies to customers.'

The idea that the nuclear plants are to be shut down is not true. The nuclear plants, I'm told, are more y2k compliant than anything. So who do we believe? Is NERC putting out lies? My friend wouldn't decieve me in a matter like this. He was instructed to have all emergency systems ready to be put in place, as if we were hit by a hurricane, just in case. They know there will be problems, but are daily ruling out the doomsday scenario, we might envision.

Keep your preparations going. Many people from power companies are buying generators. Let me know what you think about this.

-- alan mostert (alan@flasuncoast.net), January 18, 1999

Answers

My father used to say that actions speak louder than words.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), January 18, 1999.

You might try digging deeper. Ask your friend how he knows that nuclear plants are more y2k compliant than anything. If he talks to you about the plant's ability to shutdown, then he has fallen victum to the current spin. Some reports have come out recently that state that nuclear plants use non-digital equipment for shutting down. That says nothing about all of the other systems that a plant has. It is comforting to know that we can shut them down, it's just that they are more useful when they are operating.

I have heard of one organization where a VP has purchased a generator, much to the wonder of the people like your friend who have been told that everything is O.K.

I have found that many belive that "the end justifies the means." They don't want cause panic (the end), so they lie for now (the means).

As far as "doomsday" I think that most computer experts don't belive that any one day will start Y2K. It has already start causing problems for systems, and will get more problematic as we move through 1/1/00.

Remember that it's not only 'computer problems' that put electric companies at risk, it's also financial, transportation, and communications as has been well documented here on this forum and elsewhere.

-- Reporter (foo@foo.bar), January 18, 1999.

Alan,

Read Bonnie Camp's analysis of the new NERC data:

http://www.cbn.org/y2k/insights.asp?file=990114o.htm

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 18, 1999.

Alan,

That link just worked for me about two minutes ago. I can't figure out why it isn't working now.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 18, 1999.

Alan, and Kevin:

here's the text of the CBN analysis that Kevin was trying to link to - sorry about the columns on the chart, but the site appears to be dumping the text format.

Arlin

---------------------------

January 14, 1999

Does The NERC Data Really Paint A Bright Picture For Power? One Y2K Student's Analysis

(Bonnie Camp)

Bonnie Camp, a student of Y2K and the power industry, has been active in the euy2k forum managed by Rick Cowles; in December, she analyzed the SEC Form 10Q filings of every publicly-held utility. Now that NERC (the North American Electric Reliability Council) has brought out its second quarterly report, she has taken a closer look behind its statistics. Here is her analysis.

Drew Parkhill

------------------------------

RUNNING THE RACE AND UTILITY STATISTICS

A different perspective on the NERC 4th quarter report.

By Bonnie Camp

On January 11, 1999, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) issued their report to the Department of Energy (DOE) on the status of electric utilities in the United States for the fourth quarter of 1998. A portion of this report was immediately focused upon by most of the media. This portion was the first sentence of the Executive Summary's second paragraph which stated, "Minimal Operational Impact: With more than 44% of mission-critical components tested through November 30, 1998, findings continue to indicate that transition through critical Year 2000 (Y2k) rollover dates is expected to have minimal impact on electric system operations in North America."

At first glance that 44% looks quite good, doesn't it? It brings to mind thoughts such as, "Great! The utilities have almost half of their critical systems fixed and there's a year to go before 2000!" Let us not be hasty in our assumptions, however.

I was curious about how NERC had arrived at that 44% figure. Later in their report, on page 13, there was a chart of the Y2K Program Phases with the sentence just above it stating, "Averages of the reporting organizations for the fourth quarter 1998 (as of November 30, 1998) indicate the following overall progress and expected completion dates for mission-critical electrical systems." I decided to traverse the NERC site (www.nerc.com/y2k) and eventually found the Excel 95 spreadsheet titled, ""NERC Y2K Electric System Readiness Assessment" at:

ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/november1998.xls

This readiness assessment is a summary of all November 1998 responses by electric utilities which were received by NERC in answer to their monthly questionnaire. It also contains the individual answers each utility submitted for the estimated completion percentage of the three phases, Inventory, Assessment, and Remediation/Testing, as well as other information. Go to the worksheet tabbed "db" at the bottom, then scroll down to the "General Y2K Planning" section. Under "4. Overall Status" you will find the remediation estimates (abbreviated "Rmd/Tst"). To protect privacy, the data is given without utility names being used. The data on this worksheet appeared to be the source used by NERC for the estimations in their recent report.

In an effort to determine if this was the case, I scrolled all the way to the end of the row of 191 responses in the "Rmd/Tst % Cmplt" line, and sure enough, there was the average percent given: 44. The average percents on this worksheet for the Inventory, Assessment, and the Projected Completion Dates also matched those given in the page 13 chart of the recent NERC report. With the word "averages" spurring my curiosity on, I copied all the individual percentage numbers given in the row for Rmd/Tst data, added them up, and divided by the number of utilities which had responded. There were 191 responding utilities according to the spreadsheet, but there were three blanks left in the row of Rmd/Tst data. That equaled 188 responses, which was the figure I used to divide the total by. I arrived at the same average NERC did - 44% (rounded up). This 44%, however, is a numerical average which, in my opinion, does not give the best assessment of where individual utilities actually are in their remediation/testing phase in relation to the rest of the industry.

Try to imagine a race being run beginning at one end of a field and ending at the other. This is a race, not a football game, but imagine this field being marked with 10-yard lines from 10 to 90, beginning at one end, with the opposite goal line marked 100. This is also a race with a time limit and where finishing before the time is up is more important than being the first to cross the 100 mark. An official is on the sidelines studying this race, and he records at a certain time that there is a racer on the starting line, another at the 10 yard line, another at the 20 yard line, and so forth right up to the 100 line. This person doing the study then adds up the numbers 0, 10, 20, 30, etc. through 100, representing where each of the racers was located. The total would be 550. Then he divides by the number of racers, 11, and gets an average of 50. He then accurately claims that 50% of the yards needed for all the racers to finish has been run!

Now, if you're in the stands watching the race, you can see that there is still a long way to go for some of those runners, and you might also know that there are other runners who have not yet gotten onto the field to begin the race. Saying that 50% of the total yards have been run doesn't tell us if all the runners will make it across the finish line before the race time is up. We all know that runners also slip occasionally, which slows them.

Using the exact same NERC data for Rmd/Tst which each individual utility had given, I compiled them into categories which I believe better show where the runners are on the Y2K field. Here is what I discovered:

Estimated Percentage of Critical Remediation/ Testing Completed Number of Respondents Percentage (rounded)

of Total 0% 16 9% 1 to 10% 15 8% 11 to 20% 17 9% 21 to 30% 22 12% 31 to 40% 27 14% 41 to 50% 28 15% 51 to 60% 15 8% 61 to 70% 13 7% 71 to 80% 13 7% 81 to 90% 12 6% 91 to 100% 10 5%

(Note that five utilities were at 100%)

Do these same figures NERC derived its 44% figure from, presented by individual utility, appear as optimistic? Seventeen percent of the utilities which responded to the NERC November survey estimate they have completed 10% or less of their fixing and testing of critical systems. 16 utilities have not done any remediation or testing yet. Are they at the starting line or still trying to get to the field? Just 34%, or one-third of the utilities have completed more than 50% of critical systems remediation and testing. Two thirds (66%) have completed 50% or less of their remediation for critical systems.

Consider that experts, such as Rick Cowles and others who are experienced with major computer projects, tell us that the easier fixes are accomplished first and the more difficult and time- consuming generally account for the last to be done. Now take another look at that imaginary racing field. Do you notice that the ground for the last part of the race slopes uphill?

In Appendix A of the NERC report to the DOE, "Background -Year 2000 Impact on Electric Power Systems of North America", we read: "Each of the three major interconnections is a highly connected electrical network. A major disturbance within an interconnection can have an immediate effect throughout the interconnection. This high level of interdependence within an interconnection means that the strength of the overall system may only be as strong as the weakest link."

I believe the NERC data indicates there are a number of weak links, and a long way to go in remediation of critical systems for all our utilities. While NERC may be predicting a "Minimal Operational Impact", the individual utility estimates make me much less confident that will be the case. As NERC said in their own report on page 49, "Despite the NERC Y2k readiness assessment process and the Herculean efforts of countless persons across the industry, there is no guarantee that all Y2k deficiencies will be identified, fixed, and tested in the remaining time."

I do applaud NERC for setting in motion a comprehensive contingency plan strategy for utilities and I urge communities and individuals to also prepare for possible disruptions in electric power. The racers are running to the best of their ability, but some of them have a long way yet to go and time is short.

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 18, 1999.