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Wednesday September 1, 5:05 pm Eastern Time

Electric grid prepares for next week's Y2K drill

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - North American electric utilities will spend two days next week drilling their back-up communications and operations ahead of the transition to the year 2000, making sure they are prepared if computer glitches cause power failures at year's end.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) on Wednesday said the latest drill slated for Sept. 8 and 9, seeks to demonstrate the continent's ability to deploy personnel, backup voice communications and contingency response teams.

NERC, which is the non-profit industry group responsible for ensuring the viability of the power grid, said the drill would not affect delivery of electricity to any customers.

Instead, the exercise is meant to see how utilities would react to system failures caused by the 2000, or Y2K computer bug, after the millennial rollover on Jan. 1, 2000.

Many computer systems read only the last two years of a date. When the new millennium starts, it is feared computers will malfunction when they read ``2000'' as ``1900.''

A similar drill was undertaken on April 9 of this year, and was largely hailed as a success by NERC and the thousands of utilities which took part in the exercise.

``All bulk electric system entities, such as control areas, independent system operators, transmission providers and security coordinators are expected to participate in the drill,'' NERC said in a statement.

Rick Cowles, president of New Jersey-based CSAmerica, technology consultants expert in the electricity sector, said the date chosen for next week's drill was not an accident.

Sept. 9 represents a mini-Y2K for systems impacted by the ``Nines Problem.'' At issue is the impact of an old programming convention that used four nines in a row, 9999, to tell computers to stop processing data or to perform special tasks.

``If there are problems they will have people stationed for the drill on Sept. 9,'' Cowles said, noting that NERC denies setting the date for that purpose.

The first NERC drill was conducted on the 99th day of the year, Apr. 9, 1999.

Cowles said the best way to explain what will happen next week is to think of the exercise as a massive fire drill for utilities.

``You really are testing the ability to move people in the right direction in a pretty defined scenario. It drills their ability to get in the right place to operate manually,'' Cowles said.

Besides testing procedures, the drill will see how personnel can respond using satellite phones and other equipment not tied to system computers.

NERC said it will release an initial overview of the drill's results on the morning of Sept. 9.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 1999

Answers

Oh Brother... Is this another test of back-up communications systems and procedures and not actual tests of actual systems???? Can't they separate one facility from the grid, maybe one that is currently down for maintenance and check the systems to see what happens with the crew when all power is turned off and there are NO communications other than hand held radios and the brains of the people on-site. GM did this with one of their assembly lines that they were taking off line and the CEO admitted that every thing came to a stop. This garbage "test" of checking "communications" with everyone having lap tops plugged in, cellular phones, land lines, and regular computer systems operating is a total joke. In the military we would have people walking around saying, "OK, you just lost land line comm, You can't reach anyone using cell phones, sorry that battery is dead in that radio do you have another one?? That is a test to see how people react to changing situations, not a test of comm when everyone is told to bring in theior cell phones. BTW, have they already stated what the outcome will be when all this is reported to the test the way they did in Jnauary for their other "test"???

Mark DeVries

-- Anonymous, September 01, 1999