The August 3, 1999 NERC report to DOE is now online at:

ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/August%20DOE%20Report.pdf

I haven't had a chance to do much more than a quick scan of part of the document; hopefully will get some time to do so later today.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Answers

See also Before the NERC to DOE report comes out, you should be aware of this.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Correct me if I'm wrong...but is anyone else confused, alarmed, concerned, etc, etc, as to why this is the *FINAL*

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Correct me if I'm wrong...but is anyone else confused, alarmed, concerned, etc, etc, as to why this is the *FINAL* report by NERC to DOE?

It's Aug 1999, and there is no one saying they are 100% compliant, not to mention their vendors & the telecommuncation sector, two areas in which they are highly dependent.

y2k ready does not equal y2k compliant (that is my understanding), yet 96.3 claim to be ready.

Are we supposed to finish the year totally in the dark and ASSume that NERC took care of everything?

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Not only that...but the 96.3% is SELF-REPORTED by their own admission!!!!!!

(Moderator: could you please delete my initial posting...accidently hit enter before finishing! - Thanks!)

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

This is the last scheduled report from Phase 2 of the NERC project for DOE. But if I read the executive summary correctly, NERC will track remaining non-ready items monthly and submit a follow-up report to DOE in October. So this is not the last report we'll see from NERC on utility Y2K readiness.

Regarding self-reporting, a large number of utilities have had their Y2K programs reviewed by auditors, either internal, external or both. Statistics on the number of these reviews are in the report.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

I've glanced through it fairly quickly. One of the things that struck me right off the bat was in the exceptions list.

I didn't count them (yet), but most of the items listed had "Vendor availability" as the justification, not scheduled maintenance.

Yet, whenever it comes up, I seem to recall NERC always mentioning scheduled maintenance, not vendor availability problems.

Has anyone else noticed this?

- Jon

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Peter, don't mean to be nit-picky, but these are the words from NERC, on page 1:

"This final report is intended to satisfy the DOE request for assurances that electric systems are ready to operate into the Year 2000 by providing a comprehensive review of:..."

I see no mention of additional reports in October. Can you explain?

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Again, Peter...more specifics from Page iii:

"The data used by NERC and its y2k process partners to assess the readiness of electric systems is *principally* self-reported."

36.7% - internal and external 23.4% - external only 23.9% - internal only

If you add it up, more than 50% has been done internally, i.e. self- reported. Ya' know, I actually printed all 92 pages out...and read them!

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

"Vendor availability" = "Out of our hands" = "The buck doesn't stop here"?

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Mission Critical  Mission critical describes a system, component, or application whose misoperation could directly contribute toward the loss of a 50 MW or larger generating resource, the loss of a transmission facility, or interruption of system load.

(Emphasis added.)

Why is that "50 MW or larger" in there?

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999