The second NERC report has now been posted to the Web. FYI.

www.nerc.com/y2k

You need Adobe Acrobat to actually read & access the report.

Drew Parkhill/CBN News

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

Answers

Hey!

When I try to view this file, all I get is gibberish...

I have adobe acrobat, but I can't seem to download the file to convert it...

I'm running on a mac

Any suggestions?

I'd like to see the report

thanks

Jeff

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

1. Uninstall Adobe Acrobat (temporarily) 2. Go to NERC WWW site 3. You will then be able to download the PDF without an autoload of the acrobat exe when you click on the hypertext. 4. reinstall acrobat reader, then view the pdf.

I do this all the time because;

1. Printing problems of viewing pdf files through a browser 2. I want the actual pdf file.

PS: I sent you email with the pdf attached.

Good luck KT

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

Drew and Ken, In regards to saving the new NERC Report pdf file to your hard drive - If you're using Netscape 4.0, (an probably older versions as well, but not sure) a quick way to download a file to your hardrive when you don't want the browser to use its internal viewer is to put your pointer over the linked file, click the opposite mouse button, and select "Save Link As". With the Explorer browser, I believe you "Save file As" but don't quote me since don't have Explorer on this machine and I have a poor memory and it's late;).

Now, In regards to the report itself, I haven't read it thouroughly yet, but the executive summary states:

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. Only a small percentage of components tested indicate problems with Y2k date manipulations. The types of impacts found thus far include such errors as incorrect dates in event logs or displays, but do not appear to affect the ability to keep generators and power delivery facilities in service and electricity supplied to customers.

From what I have seen in the Y2K trenches, I believe that this is a fairly accurate statement.

David

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

Re nerc report...how to save to hardrive....and a copy of a section of the report on the telecommunications reliancy which appears to contradict with generalised statements made on confidence that there will be minimal problems.

SAVING THE REPORT OFFLINE ....saving the Nerc report offline can be done by saving the temporary file created in your cache to somewhere on the hard- drive...saving through ie4 using "save as" did not work for me. To find where the pdf is in the cache use windows find and type in *.pdf and it should come up...then do a cut and paste... CONCLUSION 3 "Transmission outages are expected to be minimal and outages that may occur are anticipated to be mitigated by reduced energy transfers established as part of the contingency planning process"

CONCLUSION 5 "Telecommunications from external service providers is a key issue due to the uncertainties as to what capabilities might be lost and the real-time impact of any such losses. Extensive coordination and joint demonstration tests with the telecommunications industry are required."

MORE DETAILED INFO ON CONCLUSION 5 unedited is "Issue 2  External Telecommunications Dependency: It is becoming clear that voice and data communications from external service providers is a key dependency that affects real-time operation and control of electric systems and that extensive integrated testing with these external communications providers will not be practical.

The electric industry has been repeatedly assured and has full confidence that telecommunications services will be reliable through Y2k rollover periods. However, it is difficult to achieve extensive verification in the form of integrated testing of electrical systems voice and data communications functions with external communications services providers. Electric systems have other dependencies, such as fuel supply and spare/replacement parts. However, voice and data communications are real-time dependencies and are the most challenging to account for in contingency planning and preparations.

The electric industry has taken an approach of testing all mission- critical facilities, including its internally owned voice and data communications facilities. The testing, however, generally stops with the electric utilitys equipment and does not include external communications services. The telecommunications industry is working on the Y2k issue as much or more than any other sector. The inability to conduct extensive, integrated testing with all critical communications customers is understandable, as communications networks are global, very complex, and extremely interconnected.

Telecommunications service providers cannot conduct end-to-end testing of live circuits, including integrated testing with all critical customers equipment.

The conclusion at this point is that extensive, end-to-end testing of electrical utility voice and data equipment with external telecommunications service providers is not practical. This characterization is intended to spotlight electric system operational concerns, not to point attention toward the telecommunications industry. In a parallel situation, it is also not practical for the electric industry to perform end-to- end testing that includes coordinated rollovers with all critical electricity customer equipment.

The inability to perform end-to-end testing is not a limitation unique to the telecommunications industry. To address this issue, the electric industry must work hard and in close cooperation with the telecommunications industry. Coordination meetings are already taking place to understand the interdependencies and contingency requirements of each sector. A small number of controlled demonstration tests are being planned jointly between electric substations, power plants, control centers, and external telecommunications providers. It is important in these efforts to obtain the cooperation of not only major communications service providers, but also the local telephone companies that provide leased line service. The lessons from these coordination meetings and demonstration tests will be widely distributed to members of both industries. In addition to these industry-level efforts, coordination and some integrated testing efforts are occurring at the individual utility level. The goal of these efforts is to provide greater assurances that electric and telecommunications services will be there for each other during critical Y2k periods. Obviously, extensive joint testing at the individual utility level is not practical when one realizes there are over 3,200 electric organizations and over 1,400 telecommunications organizations in North America who are dependent on each other."

So, how can there be such confidence with such a huge and complex unknown in the Telcos status.....and given that full testing with telcos can't be carried out (they state this)...what contingency plans are there for data communications....and what are the worst case scenarios with Telco problems!!

Hopefully more info on contingency plans will actually detail the full scope and impact of the contingencies that are being planned for...is this asking too much? How about we start demanding to know this....(or just asking nicely). How can individuals and organisation make contingency plans without knowing what events utilities are planning contingencies for??

Hope this was not too long for this forum....

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

Saving a the NERC report pdf file with Netscape can be done by clicking on the link while holding down the SHIFT key.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999