An interesting Friday P.M. exercise for you

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread

Has the boss left for the day?

Are you looking to do something other than play Solitare or a network game of Hearts with your buddies over in accounts receivable?

Here's the setup: It's another hot day in the mid-Atlantic states. The regional electric system in the S.E. Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland areas is strained to the limit. An intersting diversion is to watch this website, www.pjm.com, and track both emergency conditions and the spot price of electricity. As of about 2:45PM (EDT), the spot dispatch price is $999.90/MWhr. Peaking time is coming up in about 90 minutes, so it should be interesting to see what happens during that period.

This exercise will give you a very rough idea of what energy trading and operations in a deregulated market is all about. My guess is that the dispatchers and buyers throughout the system are pulling their hair out today. It's been a strange summer on the East Coast.

What does this have to do with Y2k? Corporate focus. Deregulation. Priorities. The last few years have been a very volitile time in the history of the electric industry, and Y2k was a most unwelcomed wild card.

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Answers

Interesting...the price hasn't moved from $999.00 in two hours. Could it be a $1000.00 bug in their tables? ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Rick,

Did you ever see a course in Merchandising 101? Or just go to any WalMart or Home Depot. You'll never see anything priced at $100.00 or $1,000.00. It would be $99.95 or $999.95 or there about. Of course they may "discount it" even lower, but *never* an even number. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999


I hear it topped $2,000 per MW today!

Jim

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999


Jim,

Are you sure it wasn't $1,999.95 Plus Tax? Anyway, these are breathtaking numbers, and appear to be classic gouging, which would be severely dealt with if it was some local hardware store selling portable generators during an ice storm black out. Also, with numbers like this, the accusation that Conectiv intentionally dumped some loads to avoid being "scalped" by the market place start to look plausible. Sometimes the "free" market place is prohibitively expensive.

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999


One of the things I noticed at the PJM site was that the list of their 1999 press releases does not contain anything about their Y2K status, or other mention of the year 2000. Also, on their Y2K page at the website, this is basically all the status info given:

"PJM has a commitment to provide service with integrity, is implementing its work plan and is committed to the successful completion of our Year 2000 initiative."

There is a June 28, 1999 e-mail news message saying they will be upgrading some of their computer hardware for Y2K compliance and listing what services will be interrupted for approx. 30 minutes. No other mention of Y2K or Year 2000 in any of the other news messages since November, 1998.

They still had a "any questions may be directed to Customer Service.." on the Y2K page, but when I asked a couple of simple (and polite) questions several months ago, I never did receive an answer.

I had hoped that with a paragraph about their complex computer and communication systems operations (copied below) they would have seen fit to supply more info on the Year 2000 status of those systems.

Computer Information Systems

"PJM uses multiple interconnected computer systems to support operations and planning functions. PJM applies both customized and standard applications solutions to handle the vast amount of information required to support power system operations. These systems are used to study and analyze current operations, trends and future requirements of the area."

"In order to assure system reliability, computer systems continually analyze forecasted and actual system conditions. Computer applications are in place for load forecasting, transmission monitoring, system control, generation scheduling, dispatch, accounting and communications. An extensive voice and data communication network enables continuous communication between the PJM Control Center and local transmission operators and adjacent control areas."

I didn't find anything about a contingency plan, either. Sigh.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 1999



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