Virginia Power, on its Y2K website, is boasting considerable progress with respect to compliance issues in both software and embedded controls. Here is the link:

http://www.vapower.com/news/y2k/index.html

If the reports here are true, we can expect uninterrupted flow of the juice in the Old Dominion. At present they assert that only 5% of the remediation and testing remains.

However, not being an engineer or programmer, I feel my leg being pulled a little. Interdependency issues about VaPower's responsibility to the Eastern Grid make me a little nervous. Also, how can I be confident that the testing is being done correctly--ie., in a way that is deferential to the subtle crosstalk between whole systems and not merely separately, unit-by-unit.

Should I place much confidence in "official" websites such as these? What are some guidelines for interpreting their findings with more of a critical eye? Would any of you care to take a stab at "decoding" the information on their website? Or can it be interpreted at face value? Maybe I'm a little too paranoid about the Y2K power issue. Maybe not. What do you think?

Respectfully submitted,

Coprolith

-- Anonymous, March 08, 1999

Answers

Rick Cowles gave us a search engine to query the SEC reports. The SEC report: http://207.238.19.242/cdetails.cfm?ID=12678 provides information not in Virginia Power's website.

Here is a quote from thje SEC report: Based on our efforts to date, we expect year 2000 costs to be within the range of $45 million to $55 million dollars, of which $8.5 million (including $7.8 million for Virginia Power) has been expended to date. Of this amount, $40 million to $50 million is for Virginia Power.

Looks like they will have to spend an awful lot of money in the next few months to stay on "schedule". VEPCO's website states they will finish "testing" by October 1999.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 1999

Read the details. They have to finish remediation and testing on 1 plant in October. They are doing this then because it already has a scheduled outage for maintenance.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 1999

Coprolith, perhaps it's my age, but it's hard for me to resist a "please". *grin* Here's some info I found which might help you interpret the broad picture:

Virginia Power is a principal subsidiary of Dominion Resources, Inc. According their website and Dominion's SEC Year 2000 statement their project completion estimates are for critical systems only, as is true for many utilities.

Virginia Power's assessment was completed in December, 1998. According to the component status on their web site they have identified 40 out of 203 Corporate business systems which are critical and all of these are Y2K "Ready".

They have identified 1, 477 out of 3,163 other business information systems which have been classified as critical and of those, 69% are now ready.

Of embedded systems, they have identified 19,249 critical ones out of 33,566. The critical ones are estimated to be 94% "Ready".

Virginia Power lists it's definition of "Y2K Ready" to be:

"A computer system, application or piece of equipment that will work on into the year 2000 is said to be Y2K ready."

Virginia Power appears to be doing okay in addressing their critical systems. I could find no reference anywhere concerning the methodology they used to assess their systems. Other utilities have stated their categories of assessment, such as "critical", "important" and "desirable but not necessary" or variations of the samples I just gave. VP does say, " It is estimated that the equivalent of 15-20 full time employees will be on the project during 2000 to complete work on non-critical components and systems." So they're doing a fix-on-failure for the systems not deemed mission critical.

It was interesting that VP stated they had "committed about 85 full-time equivalent employees to the project in 1998 and 1999", which sounds good, but when you look at the site list of their generating units you discover they have 4 nuclear units, 19 coal units, 35 oil units, and 6 pumped storage hydro units. That comes out to 64 different units to be taken care of by "about 85" employees.

In the business system area, a SAP project is underway:

"Multiple projects are underway to replace critical technology with Y2K ready systems. For example, Virginia Power is in the process of installing the SAP enterprise software system produced by SAP AG of Germany. SAP, which is Y2K ready, replaces many legacy software systems." So they are dependent on SAP AG to complete this.

There is also a March 5, 1999 news release on the VP site which states:

"Virginia Power will reopen its North Branch Power Station in West Virginia in early June and sell the power on the open wholesale generation market.

Electricity generated by the 74-megawatt facility will be sold through the company's wholesale energy department, The Wholesale Power Group. Sales will begin June 1 when the plant is brought back into operation.

"We are very pleased to be able to bring this unit back into service," said Robert W. Cartwright, senior vice president-Fossil & Hydro. "This will have a solid impact on the local economy. We have worked closely with several members of the West Virginia legislature to make this happen, and we thank them for their efforts and cooperation."

North Branch is located about 75 miles northwest of Winchester, Va., near Bayard, W. Va.

Virginia Power purchased North Branch in 1994 and closed it in early 1996 because the company did not then need the capacity. It will take about three months to get the station ready for start up and to obtain the necessary permits to run the unit."

While the article states the station has been closed and will take three months to be ready for start up June 1 (they must be working on it now), it doesn't say anything about any Y2K remediation efforts for this station. If it's been closed until now, it's doubtful any remediation efforts have been ongoing there, especially since the article states they " will operate the plant with about 33 employees from its Mt. Storm Power Station".

Dominion Resources also just announced a merger:

"RICHMOND, VA and PITTSBURGH  February 22, 1999  Dominion Resources, Inc. ("DRI") [NYSE: D] and Consolidated Natural Gas Company ("CNG") [NYSE: CNG] today announced they are merging to form the nations fourth largest electric and natural gas utility, serving nearly 4 million retail customers in five states."

-- Anonymous, March 10, 1999