The March (4/10/99) posting to the NERC spreadsheets shows 24 (55 in Feb)of 235 major utilities are less than 50% complete with their remediation and testing. (ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/ then select march1999.xls then select sheet "db") Also 46 (56 in Feb) of the respondents show an estimated completion date beyond the 6/30/99 target date set by NERC and none expect to finish beyond 10/31/99. I realize that 50% or more is a lot to complete in 7 months and even though the testing cannot duplicate all the interaction that will take place in Y2K, I find these reports something positive to report on this bboard. Perhaps the lights will stay on.

Never-the-less I'm still preparing to have 2-3 weeks of "just-in-case" provisions for my family on hand.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 1999

Answers

Bill, You will see a significant increase in % completed over the next two months. I estimate the average will be 75% or better by the end of June and perhaps earlier.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, April 17, 1999

It's easy to complete something when that something isn't defined.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 1999

Bill, remember that the March reports were subject to the "exception reporting" process NERC instituted and all further surveys will be also. The exception reporting allows some companies to state on the survey that they will reach the June 30 target date for mission critical readiness --with certain exceptions to that reported on a different confidential form neither the public nor the DOE will have access to. There are specific guidelines to the exception reporting process and not all delays past the target date may meet the exception conditions. However, it's probable this exception reporting will cause some positive changes in these surveys that we do have access to. We just won't know how much of a skew in the data there will be, so it's going to be difficult from this point on to gauge any improvement in completion dates.

What I do find of great interest on the March NERC survey are the answers various utilities gave to the question, "List the greatest obstacles your organization faces in achieving Y2K readiness by December 31, 1999." This survey question does not deal with just the NERC June 30 target date, but a final, end of the year readiness.

There are too many responses to list them all but some of them, straight from the utilities, include:

"Identification of components that are potentially affected by Y2K."

"Program code remediated by contractor not operating successfully."

"Difficulty in finding time to do the Y2k tasks. Difficulty in finding information on embedded processors."

"Unavailability of Human resources and time to work on Y2K project."

"Getting specific information from vendors, with restrictions on testing some types of equipment."

"Our greatest obstacle to achieving Y2K readiness by December 31, 1999 is the timely availability of required software and embedded chip upgrades. This is compounded by the need for the upgrades to be implemented during the scheduled outages."

"Lack of manpower."

"Our greatest obstacle is having the right resources available to perform Y2K work."

"Timely vendor support of associated control systems for Y2K compliance."

"Having vendors come back and say hardware or software that was Y2K ready or compliant no longer is ready." [My comment - If that hardware or software has to be installed during a scheduled outage and the regularly scheduled plant outage has already passed? What then?]

"Difficulty of testing embedded systems."

"Telecommunications industry is not forthcoming with information."

"Implementing test procedures online without risk to loss of units."

"Filling open Engineering positions."

Putting in as many of the utility responses to the survey question, "Please detail any Y2K Readiness concerns that you feel are beyond your organization's control and for which you lack external support," will make this post too long. I will include a couple here, though:

"Component vendor ability to supply upgrades or replacement components in time for the millennium."

"Supply chain readiness to provide products and services required in the generation of electricity."

"Major supplier of radio systems is not cooperating with their customer's need for data on what subsystems are compliant and which aren't. Supplier has not committed to delivery dates on key components."

Reading the utilities' own assessments of the obstacles still facing them would certainly lead one to believe that all is not as perfectly under control as some press releases would have us believe. To read all the utility responses not included here, go to the below link.

Link: ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/march1999.xls (in the General Planning section)

-- Anonymous, April 21, 1999