I have consoldated the past three NERC spreadsheets in order to compare selected data. I have typed a portion of my consolidation below. Does the heading "Potential Breakdown" mean expected loss of power generation? Do the "Contingency Planning" headings really mean that very few companies are making contingency plans?

				GX	GO	IG
Composite Results				11/07/98	12/09/98	02/13/99
				188	191	235
General Y2K Planning
2.have a written plan?		Yes		125	137	207
		In process		54	45	47
		Unwritten		11	11	13
		No		2	2	2
2a. If No, intend to?			Yes	12	11	16
			No	4	3	5
			When	11/26/98	12/31/98	03/07/99
4. Overall status		Inventory	Est Date	08/22/98	08/25/98	10/04/98
		Inventory	% Cmplt	93	96	98
		Assess	Est Date	11/17/98	11/16/98	12/23/98
		Assess	% Cmplt	75	82	90
		Rmd/Tst	Est Date	06/14/99	06/06/99	06/08/99
		Rmd/Tst	% Cmplt	36	44	57
5. Potential breakdown			Yes	159	165	227
			No	21	20	27
Nuclear Generation Facilities
5. Contingency planning?			Yes	0	0	1
			No	16	15	18
Non-nuclear Generation Facilities
5. Contingency planning?			Yes	19	20	39
			No	154	150	188

 

-- Anonymous, March 01, 1999

Answers

Bill, thanks for sending me the attachment of this by e-mail. I didn't have a chance over the weekend to look at it and respond, so I'll answer your questions here.

The "Potential Breakdown" category is the question NERC posed to utilities, "Does your Y2K analysis take into account a potential breakdown in the supply chain and/or transportation of fuel, water, chemicals, material supplies, etc.?" As your data indicates, the percentage of responding utilities answering "Yes" to this question has remained around 88% for each of the three months. This question is relevant to the contingency planning NERC expects utilities to be doing.

The "Contingency Planning" heading you question refers to, "Have you completed contingency planning for components/systems in 2. above?" The "2. above" question is, "Are the following (mission-critical* facilities) Y2K ready?" The data doesn't mean that so few are making contingency plans, it means that few reported they have "completed" contingency plans yet.

Also, remember that the status estimates, including the estimated dates of completion, have been _averaged_ by NERC using the individual utility responses. For instance, if there were only two utilities which responded to the survey, and one reported they had fixed 10% of their mission critical systems, and the other reported 80% of their critical systems were fixed, NERC would have reported that the "utilities", as a whole, were at 45% completion. (10 + 80 = 90, and 90/2 = 45)

I don't know if you ever got to read some of the assessments of the NERC reports on the data you referenced. If not, there's an analysis of NERC data and statistics by Rick Cowles at:

http://www.euy2k.com/guest5.htm

and I did a piece about the NERC averaging which is at:

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

Hope this helps and all best wishes to you!

-- Anonymous, March 01, 1999

Thanks for your explanation, Bonnie. And to Rick for straightening out my table. I see in Gary North's summary of the power grid (http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/results_.cfm/Power_Grid) that: "There are over 7,800 power-supplying organizations in the United States." In the same report he mentions "108 nuclear power plants."

Does NERC have the job to gather from all these sources? Do the 235 companies responding in the table above represent a poor response? Are we getting a very limited picture from NERC's survey?

-- Anonymous, March 02, 1999

Bill, you're certainly picking up on good questions to ask. If you have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, so you can access the most recent NERC report to the DOE, the very last part of that report adresses "Who's in Charge?" as to gathering data. It's in Appendix C. The report can be found at:

http://www.nerc.com/y2k

The Gary North data on "power-supplying organizations" combines all the various entities in generation and distribution. According to the Senate Y2K Committee report just released, there are "about 3,200 independent electric utilities" in the U.S. These include about 250 investor-owned or private utilities, 10 government utilities, 2,000 other publicly owned utilities, and 900 cooperatives. The report also says that almost 80% of the power generation comes from those 250 investor-owned or private utilities. This doesn't include the entities which don't actually generate power themselves, but do buy and distribute it, or coordinate the buying and selling of grid power.

The larger utilities are composed of many generating plants, including the nuclear plants. Some nuclear plants are owned by two or more utilities which have shares in them. The number of generating "plants" is entirely different from the utility count, and much higher, so you have to be careful to distinguish the two. For instance, reports about "plants" being ready do not necessarily mean the owning utility is Y2K ready; just a portion of it is.

This is what the NERC report said about which types of utility data are being covered by which organizations, with NERC as "coordinator". The American Public Power Assn. (APPA) is covering state and local municipal electricity providers. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is focusing on embedded systems, technical and project management Y2K issues. EPRI members number 100+ of the larger utiltiies. The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) is assisting in the review of distribution systems. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is coordinating status assessments among its members. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is coordinating the readiness assessment of nuclear plants, and the Canadian Electric Association (CEA) is also involved because parts of Canada's generation is connected to the U.S. grid.

Are you bleary eyed yet from all the acronyms? :) The NERC monthly questionnaire is targeted "to the approximately 200 entities that own, operate, or monitor the bulk electric systems of North America." So the data we get from those represents a majority of the power generation in the country, but only a small percentage of the actual number of utilities.

There is also not a 100% response rate in any of the areas covered by all the above organizations. Some people assume those not responding are further behind in Y2K fixes (or haven't started a project). Others surmise that they just won't fill out the forms, either because of legal advice, or because they don't want to be bothered with time consuming paperwork. Also, if a company is privately owned, or in a private-investor-owned status, it doesn't *have* to file the same SEC reports, etc. as others. Generally, I've found the private businesses keep their mouths shut, so to speak, and cooperate only to the extent which is legally required. Actually, I guess that applies to all businesses, it's just that the larger ones have more legal requirements they must abide by.

To sum up, the electric industry is a vast network with thousands of parts all working together. I guess every major infrastructure segment in this country sort of represents within itself the interconnection problems which make the whole Y2K problem so difficult to assess on a national and world-wide scale. Mazes within mazes! It's no wonder nobody can know with any certainty what Jan. 1, 2000 will bring. Not that that stops us from trying to guess the probabilities, huh?

-- Anonymous, March 03, 1999