Just listened to a presentation from my local utility (SDG&E), who say that everything's hunky-dory with Y2K, no problems, we are all over this problem. In response to a question from the audience about failures elsewhere, the spokescritter stated flat out that SDG&E can and will "island" themselves in the event of a failure of other parts of the grid.

Utility types: is this accurate? From what you know about SDG&E, do they have the ability to "island" themselves, if necessary?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), May 24, 1999

Answers

My local utility, Cincinnati Gas & Electric advised they will be at full power 11,000 mega watts capacity on 12/31/1999 to help other utilities that encounter Y2K problems. Local demand on 12/31/1998 was 3,000 mega watt so that is alot of excess power that has to go somewhere. (?).

CG&E advised they have contracts that require them to supply power to the grid (CG&E has excess power and is a constant provider to the grid); SO I expect that islanding would be a breach of contract. Most Contract Law of which I am aware can be breached by a declaration of "Force Majure" by the providing (primary) party. Force Majure is literally a Major Force that is unanticipated and beyond the control of the primary party.

I have seen no discussion or analysis regarding the legality of Y2K as a valid Force Majure. I strongly suspect that this could be an issue that is part of the post-Y2K litigation mess, especially if a receiving party challenges Force Majure on the basis that Y2K was an anticpated event caused by negligence and not a Major unanticpated force.

The other concern is that a utility may invoke Force Majure and island their plant(s) expecting to litigate later only to be told under US Executive Orders that they must try to energize the grid. I do not believe that the .gov will allow one city to freeze while another city is powering TVs and Nintendos. This forced connection to the grid puts the compliant provider's equipment at risk to an overload during Y2K as full SCADA, satelite timing, telecom etc may be compromised.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), May 24, 1999.

"The other concern is that a utility may invoke Force Majure and island their plant(s) expecting to litigate later only to be told under US Executive Orders that they must try to energize the grid. I do not believe that the .gov will allow one city to freeze while another city is powering TVs and Nintendos. This forced connection to the grid puts the compliant provider's equipment at risk to an overload during Y2K as full SCADA, satelite timing, telecom etc may be compromised."

Bill, this bell rings in perfect harmony with Koskinen's threat to commandeer/control private sector resources, if the free market "botches" it.

Maybe that's one of the resources he was talking about.

-- Lisa (Lisa@work.now), May 24, 1999.

Alliant believes they can do the same thing and seperate from the grid. Here is part of a message I received from Alliant.

Another major contingency plan, involves a "worst case scenario", namely the collapse of the regional electric grid, because of problems caused by another utility. While we are legally obligated to the grid, if we see problems occuring, we can attempt to isolate ourselves, but this is technically very difficult, so the possibility could occur (though I have to caution you, we have been in contact with other members of the grid and feel they are going to be compliant, so this is basically just preparation on our part, for every possibility, even though, at this point, we feel the possibilities of having to implement this, are remote), that the grid would collapse and there would be a widespread outage. If this does occur, we have a couple of plants within our system, which have the capability of what is called "Black Start", which means that these plants can restart, without an outside power source and then these plants can in turn, restart --or "jump start" --the rest of the plants, within our system. With this capability, we feel that even in a "worst case scenario", the total collapse of the regional grid, we can get ourselves back up and delivering energy, on our own, within a matter of hours, not days.

I don't know how much of a plan this would be but they believe it.

-- lisa_in_cedar (efchange@hotmail.com), May 24, 1999.

Hi Mac. Here's my perspective: I think you might have misunderstood what SDGE meant, although the differences in meaning are difficult to detect. No power company to date has plans to manually go to island mode in anticipation of year 2000 problems. However, in the extremely, extremely unlikely event of a grid collapse, many companies will restart their system isolated from others, or "islanded". But the goal will always be to re-connect to each other as quickly as possible, because we are much, much more reliable when connected together. Many such "starting from scratch" plans involve numerous companies, so many of us start back up with steps that connect us to others as we re-establish a stable system. These plans have ALWAYS been in place, and are merely being re-visited because people are asking about them in relation to y2k. I wouldn't worry about this issue anyway, because the probability of grid collapse is so very small as to be statistically insignificant.

-- Dan the Power Man (dgman19938@aol.com), May 25, 1999.

It is my understanding that the local power companies here in the DC Metro area will island the neccessary resources to keep the national capitol functional during the rollover. There has been no specific public statement to that effect, nor would I expect to see one due to the legal machinations which might be caused by such a statement.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 25, 1999.

Arlin, COUNT ON IT!!

It's probably fully covered in one of the EO's. Wouldn't do to have hiz zipplessness taking a bit of a chill, now would it??

Chuck If I hit the submit soon enough I

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 25, 1999.

We have been told here in the great Northwest that there is no physcial connection, that is, no wire to wire jump at the borders of the National grid segments. In other words if the power goes out in Texas, sorry not picking on anybody, they can not get power from the western grid.

About 85% of our power comes from Hydro-electric, and the old pre-computer original equipment is still in place at Bonneville Dam. They are supposed to switch over if necessary. That still leaves some pretty big holes in the trip to my light switch though. So I'm still preparing *as if*. Just got a larger generator this morning. I'll probably barter the other one.

-- spun@lright (mikeymac@uswest.net), May 25, 1999.

Spun -

Here in the Northwest we are not just connected via the grid but also to BC. I would suspect that any of the border states in the northern US are in a similar situation. On Town Meeting when Ed Youdon was on a couple months ago, the power rep that was there said he could not guarantee power on Jan. 1, but would guarantee that power would be on tomorrow. Boo Boo on his part - no guarantee any day is what they all say now.

I did talk to my neighbor a week or so later. He is a supervisor for Puget Sound Energy and he said that PSE could not island itself as we only produce 32% of our own power. Most electric utilities are like that ie: most utilities buy their power. Incidently, he thinks the power will stay on for the most part, but admitted that he is prepared for 30 days or so, and then gave the now classic line of "it all depends on our suppliers".

I

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), May 25, 1999.