Electric Power and Y2K

Keywords: Electric Utilities, Power Grids, Transmission, Distribution,

North American Electric Reliability Council Year 2000

• NERC's Y2K Plan
  • NERC's Y2K Readiness Assessment Questionnaire
• Y2K Report to DOE Jan 11, 1999
  • Generic Inventory List
• Nuclear Utilities Software Management Group
• IBM - Utility & Energy Services
• EEI Member Y2k Sites

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

Electric Power Supply Association

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Year 2000

Department of Energy Year 2000

Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem

Senate Subcommittee on Year 2000 Utility Survey Results

American Petroleum Institute

American Gas Association

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC.FED.GOV) Oil & Gas Sector Y2K Website

Utilities and Year 2000 "Within a typical electric utility, embedded logic control is prevalent in every facet of operation; from load dispatch and remote switchyard breaker control to nuclear power plant safety systems and fossil plant boiler control systems. Whole generating units (generally, gas turbines) are controlled from miles away by personnel adjusting system loads in response to peak demands." Rick Cowles (rcowles@waterw.com)

EPRI Year 2000 Problems for Embedded Systems "At the recent EPRI workshop on Year 2000 (Y2K) embedded system issues, 165 participants representing 55 utility and other industry organizations expressed desire for EPRI to lead a collaborative industry response in four areas: developing a database of component test results, maintaining a Web site to exchange information, collecting and sharing Y2K best practices, and developing contingency plans.

The embedded systems issue is a date stamping problem inherent with "older" microprocessors (prior to 1996). Consequently, it affects generation (fossil and nuclear), transmission and distribution, and customer systems. Examples of equipment affected by this problem are: plant distributed control systems, programmable logic controllers, smart instrumentation , remote terminal units (RTU)s, smart recorders, nuclear personnel radiation measurement counting systems, etc. control center SCADA systems, substation equipment such as scan log and alarm recorders, digital fault recorders, smart relays and breakers, etc. building temperature controllers, residential and commercial smart meters, etc. " The Electric Power Research Institute 3412 Hillview Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304-1395 (650) 855-2000 Your EPRI Y2K Embedded Systems Team

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